[Music] so [Music] there's not a single example of someone being regenerated through water baptism to my awareness in the new testament that it is a means by which the forgiveness of sins is delivered through the sacrament itself i i see that as as unanimous in the fathers well good evening gentlemen and happy whatever time it is to anyone that's watching this in the future it is such a privilege to be hosting another one of these conversations on baptism we are in our second installation of this series now where we're talking about baptismal regeneration in the first video which went on dr gavin ortland's channel truth unites we talked about the subjects of baptism specifically should we baptize infants and now we are getting back to the topic that initially gave rise to these conversations and that is baptismal regeneration and today we're going to be diving into that looking at scripture and history and i'm really excited to be here with both dr gavin ortland of truth unites the author of several books including the forthcoming book why god makes sense in a world that doesn't as well as pastor of uh he's the pastor of first baptist oh i believe i said that correctly and also you guys doubtless know him because this video will be on his channel but dr jordan b cooper author of several books as well including the recent book union with christ salvation as participation and the director of the widener institute which you can find out more about that because this is on his channel my name is austin i run a channel called gospel simplicity and i am honored to be hosting these conversations as i said we're going to be talking about baptismal regeneration today and i find it's always helpful to define terms at the beginning of a conversation because there's nothing more frustrating than seeing a debate or a dialogue in which people seem to be saying the same word but meaning different things and they end up talking past one another and going over the heads of everyone else so to avoid that we start by just succinctly defining what is baptismal and regeneration yeah to so to define baptismal regeneration it actually is pretty broad right when we're talking about that because there are a number of traditions that do speak about baptismal regeneration um but we may approach the issue in slightly different ways so there are different nuances to it in different perspectives that are under that broader umbrella now we're using that term regeneration which really is not all that common of a biblical term uh it's used a couple times in the new testament um and in reference to baptism uh the apostle paul in the book of titus speaks about a washing of regeneration now there's going to be some debate over whether that's actually referenced to baptism or not but in terms of those traditions which are going to take that position uh we're going to say that there is a washing of regeneration so whatever this thing that regeneration is it's something that is brought about um by by baptism so to say that uh regeneration is tied to baptism or that there's a view of baptismal regeneration is essentially to say that uh the waters of baptism the sacrament of baptism uh when it is administered properly that is in the name of the triune god using the formula that jesus gave us uh using uh the the visible elements that jesus commanded us to use which is water in the application of water however you do that and we can debate mode uh of course but however however it is done that it actually delivers grace to us and uh delivers grace to us in the sense that it brings forth um new life to the one who was baptized so spiritual life is given to the one that receives the sacrament of baptism that is through the means of of water so through that means of grace we receive new life spiritual life and also receive the forgiveness of sins now again once you get i think into the more specifics of that you're gonna find some differences about some of the particulars uh the question of what's the relationship between faith and baptism when we're talking about baptismal regeneration or um you know what's the relationship between baptism and the forgiveness of future sins after baptism or um you know there are a number of these other points that i think we can we can see that there is some some discussion about but that's basically generally the notion that the giving of spiritual life occurs through the means of of baptism and by that i mean water baptism um not not something that is totally divorced from from the act uh with water awesome dr orlando do you want to add to that yeah yes it's it's helpful to address this question at the front end so thanks austin for always doing a good job of kind of sketching these uh the flow of thought out here and i just in agreement with dr cooper about the diversity of this and the breadth of this um it's pretty broad you know if you talk to last time we mentioned there are credo baptist groups that believe in baptismal regeneration like the churches of christ and if you're talking about a lutheran conception it will be a little different than a roman catholic view and when we get to the church fathers i'm going to propose that there is kind of a kaleidoscope of different options for how it is sort of cashed out and even just in what dr cooper has said thus far the phrase of giving new life well there's a sense in which i would totally affirm that because i believe as i said the baptism is a means of grace but um in terms of does it impart regeneration so to answer the question i would say baptismal regeneration is the view that baptism is the means of regeneration and i think for trying to get into the particulars here for the lutheran view to the best of my ability to understand dr cooper can correct me if this is wrong we'd want to add in the adjective ordinary there so we'd want to say that baptism is the ordinary means of regeneration because i think as soon as we get into the examples here we're going to see that all of our traditions acknowledge exceptions where it works differently from the norm so um just to plug some just and sinner books if i may i've been i've been reading through some of these great books that dr cooper is uh instrumental in bringing about reading some of the older because one of my concerns in these is i want to make sure i'm sufficiently distinguishing the lutheran view from reformed views that i'm very intimately familiar with and so i want to make sure i'm catching all the nuances so i've been reading a lot of luther's sermons on baptism and then a lot of these older charles kraut david henkel out of these older kind of you know lutherans from like the 19th century who are debating a methodist on this is really fascinating so i i i think this is a fair representation of the lutheran view dr cooper can wreck me can correct me if this is wrong but it would be to say baptism is the ordinary means of regeneration um and then therefore as a consequence of that baptism is not absolutely necessary for for salvation but it is ordinarily necessary for salvation yeah yeah that's the traditional lutheran language so we would say that and the oxford confession does use the phrase that it is necessary for salvation but while recognizing that there are some there are certainly exceptions to that you know we're certainly not going to say the person who hears the hears the gospel believes in christ has never been baptized gets you know hit by a semi truck across the street and dies that so that means hey you can't get into paradise because you weren't baptized i mean you know i lutherans after all we do believe in justification through faith alone uh and that's gonna be one of the questions that i think a lot of people tend to ask us is like how can you affirm these two things together which i think they actually go very well together but that's maybe further on we can we can talk about that a little bit but yes i think that's that's that's certainly a fair a fair representation and as you pointed out that's not just something that's unique to lutherans i mean even in the roman perspective um there is certainly going to there are certainly going to be exceptions i mean someone like bernard of clairvaux in the medieval church speaks about a baptism of desire the early church spoke about a baptism of blood for those who were martyred who just hadn't gotten baptized yet so uh christians who affirm baptismal regeneration um really none of them that i'm aware of would come down so strictly uh on it to say that there is absolutely no circumstance in which one can be saved without baptism and maybe it'd be helpful if i could just offer a definition of the word regeneration as well that might clarify as we go forward and also just to say to curtail us from uh following a rabbit trail later some people have argued that baptismal regeneration is necessarily works righteousness and i'm not going to be making that argument i i think dr cooper's right to push back on that and that it um has some category confusions there i i do think you could affirm baptismal regeneration and justification by faith alone so i won't be going down that route later but i would say just to be really clear when we talk about baptism imparting new life there's a sense in which i could affirm that i would say the lord's supper imparts new life you know but i would say that regeneration uh so regenerative new life you know uh i would say that's the initial um act by which god brings us from death to life so we we are translated from a state of dead in sins and alienated from god to a state of friendship with god and reconciliation with god so that's how i would define regeneration um you go from dead in sin to alive to god and so that would be just to clarify what i mean when i use that term yeah i think even within you know even within the lutheran tradition if we're talking about regeneration the term has really been actually used in multiple ways and there's a little bit of debate about even what the right way to use the term is uh because it does seem that the earliest lutherans um used the term largely to refer to something that is an effect of faith we we believe as a gift of the spirit and and after that we are regenerated then we are given like new life in faith and the reception of the holy spirit uh later on in the 17th century as lutheran theology develops it tends to be the case that regeneration is actually defined as the giving of faith itself that is regeneration there are still other uses of regeneration that would use the term as something more broad than just one initial moment and i think that's that's true in the reformed tradition as well you can find occasional individuals who use it something more like new life as in sanctification like the entirety of the new life that you are being given uh continually so i think uh it's important to clarify that just to say that's the the issue does get a bit complex when you're just using the term regeneration because it is a term that again is not used that many times in the new testament so uh it's a bit difficult i think to get a very particular definition which is why we have to define what we mean uh when we say it so that's why i would say um you know and you haven't brought up the yourself the idea that we have new life through you know the supper or new life through through baptism as well in your perspective in some sense um and just to address something that i very often hear about the lutheran perspective is people say well you do believe you can be born again through the word of god as you know peter says uh and so what happens to an adult convert is baptism then just a symbol you're basically a baptist when the adult convert is baptized and only you know a baptismal regeneration proponent when the infant is baptized and i think it helps to say that in one sense we can talk about spiritual life as something that is that is continual so that i think we can even speak about a baptismal regeneration even if you're already regenerate in some sense through the word of god there still is an imparting of life it doesn't make baptism just a symbolic act even at that point this is helpful as i think we're already opening up some fruitful lines of dialogue that we're going to come back to and i appreciate that i want to start off i mean i guess we've already started but as we delve into this a bit with a question that it might sound simplistic but i think it's the question that so many people are going to be asking when they think about baptism and that is does baptism save and i'd like to hear both of your perspectives on that just so that people kind of have an understanding we're starting to touch that um but if you guys could go ahead and give your answer to that and uh we'll start with dr ortland this time yeah okay so this may be a good thing we'll be able to clarify early on as well as i would say there's a sense in which absolutely baptism saves um just to lay out my view and then i'll get three metaphors austin has talked to me before he knows how much i love metaphors so i've got three now but um i've been thinking about these and trying to clarify them but so i would say um baptism is not the means of salvation but the visible summative effect of salvation i would see baptism as sort of the crowning climactic official expression and celebration of salvation i've used the word metonymy to describe my perspective before though i don't really insist upon that word too strongly but autonomy just means part for the whole so an example of a usage of metonymy would be when we say the blood of jesus cleanses us from sin we don't mean the blood per se as distinct from his flesh and so forth it's not like if you touch the physical red blood then you are saved we mean the blood as representative of the events that we associate with jesus's death on the cross and similarly i'd say baptism saves in the sense that baptism is representative of salvation and the whole process of salvation that leads up to salvation so some metaphors my favorite one is the metaphor of a coronation ceremony so when a king or queen is uh officially recognized publicly recognized as the new monarch there's a coronation service where there's regalia there's you know oaths and declarations and prayers the new monarch is usually acclaimed by the people in some way there's often anointing with oil and you know a whole elaborate public official sort of crowning moment but that isn't when they become the monarch so technically they're already the king or queen by that point so they exceed to the throne almost immediately in most cases like queen elizabeth ii for example there were 14 months between when she became the queen and when she had her coronation service her coronation service is this big event at westminster abbey in june i think of 1953 and it's broadcast to the world everyone can see it and yet in february i think of the previous year february of 1952 is when she like within hours of her father's death she's in traveling in kenya and she becomes the queen immediately so you've got the official public representation that is not causative of the thing uh that it is celebrating and expressing another metaphor would be a graduation ceremony uh when you graduate from college or whatever a different degree you go up during the ceremony and officially are recognized and you receive your diploma and and so forth my college graduation was on may 13th but you can act technically as a graduate for the purpose of job applications as soon as your coursework is completed so on may 10th i can fill out a job application as a college graduate it doesn't it's not technically causative of the event it's the formal public recognition of it another metaphor would be a wedding ring and this one is a little tricky and can get some pushback but don't overthink the metaphors out there so this is how it can happen so often the exchanging of rings is seen usually it is seen as a distinct part of the wedding ceremony than the uh exchanging of vows and so that's not technically when you actually become married and yet there are the words with this ring i the wed i've also used a fourth metaphor of becoming a citizen of a country and it's as soon as the paperwork is officially recognized as opposed to some sort of formal you know recognition at a public event or something like that so my perspective is that um just as there is no violation to human language if we say the queen be was crowned in 1953 or we say with this ring i thee wed or we say i graduated on may 13th so we may say baptism saves it's not um baptism itself as distinct from the events leading up to it but it is baptism as their crowning moment and as their official expression and i'm not trying to argue for that view now i'll give some reasons as we go forward of why i think that's not just possible it actually makes a lot of sense a lot of sense of the data we have to think of baptism like that but right now i'm just trying to clarify kind of what my perspective on that is yeah so i know we're going gonna get into you know some of the specific texts as we as we move forward so i'm gonna try to give um just a little bit of i guess of a summary of my position on on that um so essentially i would say yes baptism saves you know kind of i would kind of give an unqualified yes um and i think scripture itself is clear about that i mean peter does use the phrase baptism now saves you which will you know we'll get into the the particulars of that section which of course is a major part of this whole discussion um so essentially um i believe that when we take all of the data in the new testament and not just in the new testament i've also made the argument that i believe that this is typologically um there there's much significant typologically uh even including the the spirit's connection with the waters going back to genesis one right the spirit hovering over the waters being there at creation uh and then the language of water and spirit at new creation especially when we read like ezekiel 36 the sprinkling of clean water which occurs at the same moment as the the bringing about of a new heart and the use of that kind of language as we get into them baptism in the new testament i think points forward to most clearly a perspective that would say baptism saves um now i do want to say this though you know because i don't want to give a ton of defense at this point since we'll be getting into that but um to clarify uh what do i mean that baptism saves uh does this mean that uh this is a human work that i do to earn my salvation right this is and i know dr ortland doesn't doesn't believe that i think this but this is just for for the sake of you know viewers who are maybe just curious about this and it's kind of the the initial question that often comes up well isn't that works righteousness are you saying that you know that this water is magical or something like that the language that martin luther uses in the small catechism i think is very helpful when he says it's not just the water by itself but it's a word of god in and with the water so when we're saying that baptism saves we're essentially saying that the word of god saves that god has attached his word to particular visible physical elements and so one of those is baptism and you know you can tie this to the fact that jesus in various healings uses physical elements he chooses to do that so you know he you know spits in some dirt and rubs mud in somebody's eyes you know did jesus need to do that uh like was there something special about that mud no it was just mud but uh it's just it's just ordinary mud but jesus chooses to use that physical created object for the purpose of of a saving act in that case of physical literal healing uh but i would say that this is what's going on in baptism is god is choosing to use this particular means not because the water is magical or anything like that not because the pastor is has special powers or you know nothing like that it's because god has determined that this is what he's decided to use and so he's decided to use water and through that means of water um the spiritual benefits of salvation are given to the one who who receives who receives that baptism i also do want to say as well connected to that that this is ultimately our being saved via baptism is really our being saved via christ and i think when we speak about any of the elements of our salvation subjectively it's all rooted in the historical life of christ it's rooted in that which is objective that christ accomplished in his life death and resurrection so we can say that our baptism is really our participation in christ's baptism i mean think about what happened in jesus baptism he's baptized which is such an odd thing anyway because john himself thought it was odd because this is you know for those who are repentant like why does he need baptism of repentance john's really confused about this but at jesus baptism we have the spirit literally descending upon him we have the heavens opening up we have this this declaration that jesus is the son of the father and so when we are being baptized and and paul often uses that kind of language of baptized into his death or baptized into his resurrection the language is really participatory we're participating in jesus so when i am baptized essentially i am sharing in what happened to jesus like i get that same spirit that jesus received at his baptism um i am welcomed into the name of that same triune god that jesus was declared to be among at his at his baptism and so we received that status as sons in baptism just as jesus heard that public declaration of his own status as son uh in this this way uh at his baptism so i think that's just important to bring out to say because there's so much misunderstanding i think when people initially hear this that to say that this is really about christ and this is really about god using this as a means to bring us to him thanks for that i think that's helpful to give that distinction for people who might not be as familiar with some of the nuances of the answer yes baptism saves that they might think that's somehow apart from christ and i imagine if i can plug it for you that maybe that idea of participation might be covered in a recent book called union with christ's salvation as participation i don't know but it is it is yes this is just what's on my mind at the moment that's probably why i'm going there with this but wonderful so i want to start diving into scripture because that that's where these conversations come out of we wouldn't be having this conversation if we didn't think that uh these matters were scriptural one way or the other and so i want to start with you dr cooper and you already mentioned some of the the force of old testament typology here as well as peter's statement of baptism now saves you and it just so happens that those things kind of coincide in ii peter 3 there and so i've heard you mention the crossing of the red sea as well as the flood which peter brings out there could you explain some of these typological arguments and how they and your view are an argument for baptismal regeneration yeah i would say in in some ways my my convictions surrounding baptism regeneration and infant baptism which you spoke about last time really do in some way center on the nature of typology um because as i look at the the nature of typology and you know every other way as we see the shadow in the old testament and then the fulfillment which is the reality of what that shadow was pointing to in christ i think that what's often missed in a lot of technological discussions which you know are really common in say the reformed world and you know you read guys like uh you know gk beale or meredith klein or some of these guys who have really wonderful work in the area of topology i i feel like there are so many areas where there just aren't connections made in terms of the sacraments it's not really the focus and i think if you're to apply a lot of those same principles that the reform generally use in terms of typology seeing christ as the fulfillment um as connected to the sacraments i i have a hard time coming away with anything other than a very strong tie between salvation and baptism so uh let me just yeah i can mention just a couple of these but first i want to say this because i think this is really key is the principle of typology that the fulfillment is always greater than the type okay so the type is always the picture the type is called a shadow uh the author of hebrews is kind of drawing on platonic language a little bit there um to say that the real thing is what we have in the new covenant that was just symbolic of what is the real thing which means that the type is never as great as the fulfillment and the difficulty that i have with the way that a lot of typology is used from those who don't hold to a you know baptismal generation in in some form is that it doesn't seem that the type is really greater or the fulfillment is really greater than the type so let me just say what those two two instances that you brought up and i think there are others as well but these are two connections that the um the new testament very explicitly makes itself um so the first is is in first first peter chapter three where you have this and it's granted it's a very odd passage in many ways i think this part of the passage is actually not that confusing but uh to be fair the context in which it shows up is a little odd because we have this talk of noah and there's a bit of debate about what's going on there but but i think that the point that's clear he's talking about noah in verse 21 uh and i'm reading from the new king james here he says there is also an anti-type which now saves us baptism not the removal of filth from the flesh but the answer of a good conscience toward god through the resurrection of jesus christ who has gone into heaven is at the right hand of god angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to him um and i guess i should have maybe gone down back to verse 20 to actually make the connection explicit here but he's talking about the ark uh which is that is eight souls were saved through water so it's clear that there are some connections here uh and the one is that uh there is water in both instances and there is deliverance in both instances so what happens in the event of the flood if you think about it is we have an instance where god's wrath is literally poured out on the earth on unbelievers on the wickedness of the world i mean they're they're literally dying it is it's not just you know symbolic of that of course this is god's wrath in the flood and there is a real salvation that occurs a real bodily salvation that same water that is judging and destroying the unbelieving world is now the very instrument of salvation by which the ark is kept afloat and those individuals are literally saved from the wrath of god so you see an instance of of salvation there um from the wrath of god in this visible man of physical manifestation which is connected to baptism so now in baptism the connection he's making is just like this baptism now saves you and i have a hard time seeing that that connection really would fit if he doesn't mean that there is a literal saving that is occurring in and through a baptism just like noah's family is saved in and through the flood now people are always going to point out the next part of that which is he says not as a removal of like dirt from the flesh or filth from the flesh but it's a pledge of good a good conscience toward god the point i think that peter is making here is not to say by baptism i don't mean water baptism which is what some people go to because the entire point of the parallel is that there's water in both so he mentions the water specifically um but instead he's saying it's not because it's this it's because your body's cleansed but instead it does something for the conscience we we can present our a clean conscience before god because of baptism which seems to me to make the most sense that he's saying that you have a clean conscience because you've received the forgiveness of sins and baptism which would connect well with what goes on in acts for example um so i have a ton to say but let me just move i'll do my quick noah or sorry quick moses in the parting of the red sea spiel here and then i can let dr ortland respond because i'm sure he has plenty to say in response to these um uh to this so when we're looking at another example of baptism and i bring this one up um because this is again another explicit mansion in the new testament so paul paul does this he says that the israelites were baptized into moses and you know i mentioned this last time to say well here's a clear example of infant baptisms because at least that baptism had infants right but paul making that parallel is making a very specific and explicit parallel to baptism and that is that you know the exodus in some ways can be called the the gospel of the old testament that's like the redemptive event of the old testament um the theologian robert jensen who i often disagree with but i think he's right when he says that god in the old testament is really identified as whoever rescued us from egypt like that's who god is to the israelites and i i see that that you know that red sea event is kind of the redemptive event that they're often brought back to really the whole story that that's a part of meaning the redemption from the egyptians with the you know the passover and everything else as well so what's going on in that in that event of the crossing of the red sea well they have a savior figure who is moses who's acting as a type of christ here and that savior figure is performing a miracle through water that the enemies of the people of israel the the you know pharaoh and the egyptians are trying to kill the israelites in the israelites experience not a symbolic but an actual literal physical redemption as this miracle occurs and as they cross through the waters so this is something real i mean this is salvation this is not a symbol of salvation it's not anything else it's this is the saving act is in and through the water and then it defeats their enemies so they're free from enslavement literal physical enslavement and now they are a free people they've been redeemed by yahweh and that that then identifies them like that's the identifying event so if we're going to take that parallel and use the basic principles of typology what's the parallel that's going on here which is well the difference is that's the picture this is the fulfillment which means that was the it was literal and real but it was a real saving from a physical captivity baptism now is is the fulfillment which is a saving from the spiritual captivity that we have and so it's not just the physical egyptians that are being drowned there but it's our sin and our sinful nature um and you know the power of the devil over us uh which is why we have these kind of renunciations of satan so common especially in early baptisms um so to me just putting those pieces together in terms of what was the old testament story how does that then fit with what the new testament is saying baptism is fulfillment of and and when i read those texts it makes the most sense of the text in my view in the nature of typology to say that baptism is saving so sorry i know that was long but uh there's my their spiel as short as i could probably give it because i could go on for way too long about this but my answer might be on the lengthier side too so um what i'll do is try to pause halfway through so that we can create space for the the back and forth which is always so good that sounds good maybe i should have done that too after the first one that's too big two big texts but go ahead all good all good um yeah maybe just to start with because i think what sometimes happens is people refer to these passages in the new testament that speak of baptism as having a saving efficacy in some sense first peter 3 21 is the one that's come up there's about six or seven others that often come up in these discussions what i often find is people will simply quote these verses and then just abstract from them baptismal regeneration in my opinion far too quickly as though that's sort of the immediate or obvious conclusion to be drawn from them and to me it's kind of similar to when people quote this is my body therefore transubstantiation and it's it's kind of too neat and quick a movement to where the questions that i think we need to ask are being glossed over like what does the word is mean in the statement this is my body which actually is not easy whatever you view you take at least it's worth asking the question and getting into the historical vetting of that question and kind of working through that similarly with a statement like baptism now saves you i think no one takes that literally in every sense and i'm going to unpack my views on that person in just a little bit but so so maybe to start with what i can do is just give two reasons why i think it's it not only reasonable but somewhat instinctive and unavoidable to to wonder at the degree of literality in these new testament passages uh how literally do we take them or if that's not the right way to put it just put it more broadly what exactly does it mean when peter says baptism saves you and why i think that's sort of reasonable to to wonder at so one reason would be just what baptism is as a sacrament so i would say that it's inherent to what a sacrament is that there is linguistic complexity in how it functions because it is a representative event it's a symbolical event so it's i'm not saying it's just a sign but we can certainly agree it's at least a sign it's pointing to something and there does emerge this complicated relationship between sign and things signified and i'm going to argue that one is often used as a stand-in for the other and so i'll come back later to ezekiel 36 and some other passages where i'd say there's unavoidable passages in holy scripture that talk about cleansing water and that they're not talking about baptism and so i'll come back to that but i would say baptism is the one part of salvation that's visible you can't point to someone being justified and say wow look at that justification happening right there okay you can't point to someone being adopted as god's son or daughter and say there it is right there um baptism is the thing you can point to baptism is also the formal and public uh moment of salvation i uh in context of my research i interviewed a few pastors for one of my books one of them lives in singapore he was telling me that the students the university students at his church don't get backlash for going to church reading a bible and even asking jesus into their heart but they do receive backlash for baptism because that's the crossing of the rubicon moment and i've read about in other places as well there's a similar dynamic where baptism is sort of the formal so i would say this you can look at baptism and say that's salvation there it is that person is now a christian now that's not to say necessarily that it is causative of salvation in some sense and so in other words the very nature of what a sacrament is just as we wonder at the meaning of the words this is my body at least create the possibility of linguistic complexity and at least should generate us to be saying this isn't a dumb question to wonder what does it mean like how literally is it baptism itself um the second reason i think that's reasonable is as we'd probably all agree here faith also saves and so what you have is in cases where there is a temporal gap between baptism and faith you have two distinct moments that function as causes for one effect so you've got two different effects excuse me two different causes and one effect uh the effect being salvation and the causes being baptism and faith converting faith so if your friend borrows your car and comes back with a flat tire there will be more metaphors don't worry sorry for that um if your friend borrows your car but comes with flat tires and you say what happened and say well i nailed a curb and then a half mile later i ran through a construction site that had lots of nails you it will be instinctive to wonder which of the two causes created the flat tire or or was it 50 50 or something like that it's it's instinctive to wonder about that and what i see happening over and over in my ministry and later we'll talk about the book of acts is people look like they get regenerated at faith um so here's another metaphor suppose i have a friend named john john is dramatically converted on january 1st john is baptized on october 1st what i see over and over and over and over in my ministry is they look regenerate in february march april etc now obviously you can't know for sure where someone's heart is at but they give all the fruits of regeneration for that 10-month catechetical process and that generates the question now dr cooper alluded to this earlier that we all acknowledge that can happen thomas aquinas has passages in the summa theologica where he'll talk about how you can get regenerated at faith rather than at baptism so i'm not saying that that's at odds with a baptismal regeneration perspective but let me read how the lutheran theologian johan gerhard puts it he's one of the great sort of scholastic lutheran theologians he says quote when therefore they are baptized who have already been regenerated through the word as a seed they have no need of regeneration through baptism but in them baptism is a confirmation and sealing of regeneration now that's essentially my view but what he would say is the exception for adult conversions in some cases i would basically just say that's more the norm now we can talk about that as we go forward but my point just now is um what gerhard envisions there or what i am referring to with my friend john that's not at odds with first peter 3 21 i'm happy to say baptism saved john so we have to be able to interpret these verses that accounts for those realities we all acknowledge no one thinks it's always baptism per se and there's a lot of nuances in these passages that tend to get in my opinion kind of glossed over if all we do just as we'll talk about with the fathers as well if all we do is say you know the bible teaches baptism saves therefore baptism or regeneration and that feels to me like jesus said this is my body therefore transubstantiation because of this linguistic complexity that we've got to wade through and work through the nuances of that i mean i would say that with first peter 3 21 you don't need baptismal regeneration for the antitype to be greater than the type there's so many points of disanalogy between the flood of noah and baptism but one of them is that the waters were destructive the waters were not the instrument of salvation the ark was another is eight people as opposed to every christian um another is it doesn't say that you're you make an appeal to god once you're baptized or baptism allows you to make an appeal to god it says baptism is an appeal to god and no one who thinks and and i would say that who's making the appeal and i would say it's the baptism is the best way to take that no one takes that literally with an infant like an infant is in it from a personal standpoint making an appeal to god so i would say there's there's lots of ways that these uh verses and i have i'd like to kind of extend out into some of the other passages in the new testament but maybe that'd be a good point just to pause and see thus far i'm trying to say what a sacrament is and it's relation to saving faith generate complexity that should make us all have a lot of patience for the question how literally do we take this yeah i mean uh there's a lot i have to say about that these are good these are good talking points for sure and uh yeah there's just so much i could get into with each of those but let me just say a couple of things in terms of the first thing that that's brought up i mean i would say linguistically this is my body means this is my body i mean that's that's a lutheran contention as well so um so for you to point that out is you know i i would say well yes i think we should take that literally so i think there's going to be a difference in terms of of how we approach sacraments in general now it has always been the case uh within within lutheran thought as well that sacrament though we can speak of it as a general category in some sense we we are never to first determine a definition of what sacrament is and then import that then put those other things that we call sacraments within the definition so in other words it's it's that the bible says a lot of things about baptism it says a lot of things about the supper it also says things about absolution but that's a whole other discussion and that the church historically because it recognizes some similarities between these things they're they're given by christ uh for the um you know benefit of the church and as means of grace the church has chosen to use that term sacrament to define those things in other words we're not going to make an argument from this is what sacrament is therefore it applies in this particular case um with with that being said uh then you get to if i could address the you know the the second argument there um that that's you know salvation you have basically two causes of one event right which is salvation now i would say when i'm speaking about salvation i think it's wrong-headed to think of salvation first of all as a bunctile or event in the christian's life i mean as the primary we have to speak about salvation at all um i would say that that if there is a you know punctilior singular event that is our salvation it essentially is christ it is christ's historical life death and resurrection and in his life death and resurrection he has earned salvation he has he is justified at his resurrection he is vindicated uh before the father as representative of his people and salvation in our in a personal sense when we receive salvation that is essentially a bringing of ourselves into the objective event of salvation that is essentially christ's own life death and resurrection his accomplishment of salvation now why why that's relevant is because anything that connects me to jesus is a saving event in some sense so that i'm not just thinking about the moment that i first had faith can we think can we talk in that way in a sense sure of course there certainly is a moment that that we move from death to life you know that we were under wrath now we are under grace i mean scripture does absolutely use that kind of language but also when we speak about you know salvific terms whatever the terms it may be let's take uh let's take justification say um look at you know romans chapter four which is a text that i i uh you know often go to and i've gone to my dialogues with roman catholics on justification i love romans four i'm convinced that the roman treatment of that just is not adequate and they can't they really cannot sufficiently explain paul's argument but uh that's beside the point but the the point of bringing up romans 4 here is that in romans 4 paul gives examples of justification by faith and his examples of justification by faith are not conversion experiences uh there there's genesis 15 which is you know abraham receiving the covenant promise that he already received in genesis 12 uh we know that abraham already had faith because in hebrews 11 he's an example of faith prior to genesis 15. he's one of the he's a hero of faith even at that point then we have psalm 32 of david's confession of sins and forgiveness which certainly is not his conversion experience we know that he speaks in other psalms about you know trusting in god from his mother's breasts as we talked a little bit about last time so the the point of bringing that up is to say that when we speak about salvation and salvation is a broad category but i'm just focusing on one aspect which is justification scripture can use the language of justification to refer to a lot more than just an initial conversion event so that i would have absolutely no issue with saying that faith saves and baptism saves um and i mean that you know in a literal sense i mean it's always a hard to say literal sense because what does that mean but um but in a sense that it really does do a saving action it is it is it is applying the benefits of christ to us concretely um but that this occurs all the time uh so so i would say that something like justification is not just a singular event but it's continual so for speaking about the forgiveness of sins why is it that you know in the lord's prayer daily we're asking for the forgiveness of sins if we just had the forgiveness of sin to justification and our future forgiveness is really just that one time forgiveness well there's certainly a connection between the two but we're continuing to receive the benefits of that as our life goes on so in light of that i don't think that there's a problem there in what we're saying temporally unless you're going to conceive of salvation as a one-time event which which i'm challenging that that's that's the primary biblical mode of speaking of of saving or or salvation let me just clarify one quick point and then of austin sure jump into free but um with regard to transubstantiation i i didn't say this is my body it doesn't mean this is my body i said the movement from this is my body to transubstantiation which is a particular understanding of that and that's the parallel that i'm drawing with baptism from the statement baptism now saves you to the understanding of how baptism saves and the acknowledgement that people like aquinas and gerhard make that sometimes you're regenerated at faith temporally preceding baptism is draws attention to the um complexity of understanding well how and in what sense does baptism save with regard to the punctilior nature of salvation i'd just be curious with the specific term regeneration just a question of ignorance truly did it would it be your understanding that that is a puncture event or would you say regeneration also is a sort of ongoing or a process or something like that i would say that it can be spoken of in both ways um which you know this is something that um in an order salute us in in some of the older lutheran scholastics as well even when they talk about conversion they can talk about daily conversion as well as conversion in the sense of initial initial act so i'm comfortable speaking in both ways so regeneration as that initial event sure but is there a daily reality of my am i being regenerated continually sure i think i'm i'm okay talking that way as well okay that then to some extent some of our differences may be terminological because what gerhard expresses as from my vantage point is sort of an exceptional case from a lutheran perspective is something that i would affirm uh that's basically my view when he talks about the baptism for those who are already regenerated is a confirmation and sealing of their regeneration so if baptismal regeneration simply means that you know you're given new life but it's sort of subsequent to your initial regeneration then our views would not necessarily be in disharmony i'm not accustomed to thinking of regeneration that way i'm not off the top of my head aware of kind of biblical precedent for that kind of language but if there is if that's how regeneration is defined that in a more elastic way than to some extent we're not as far off but what i mean to exclude when i say i don't affirm baptismal regeneration would be what i how i define regeneration at the beginning that initial translation from state of uh deadness spiritual deadness to state of spiritual life i don't know if that clarifies or not yeah i think um one of the things when you look at someone like gerhard and gerhart it's like uh uh you know in my list of like theologians that are in the you know influence me gerhard's the the top of the list you know without a doubt i think he's the best theologian our tradition is has uh created even better than luther but um i know it's terrible for me as lutheran to say that i love i love garrett but the reason what i was going to say is i think this is an area where i think gerhard in the other kind of lutheran scholastics coming from that era where they don't develop things well enough is exactly with regard to that question because they don't really spend a significant amount of time developing what that means and i think some of this is the fact that it was a very different cultural circumstance i mean in germany like the infants are all baptized this is the expectation so they're not wrestling with the issue i don't think enough in a way that lutherans have to think much more about this in an american context in a more revivalist context where it's not just kind of a given that of course the infants are going to be baptized so so i would say that gerhard does not as much as i hate to say this about gearheart sufficiently treat the subject like i i'm not sure that i would affirm exactly what gerhardt says i don't know that that's a great response personally interesting well if if you don't mind austin if i could just finish off quickly my response on the whole issue of biblical language and i just want to make uh it might be helpful just to articulate kind of a new thought venturing out into new direction to some extent but just briefly to say basically my general approach to the interpretation of this new testament language and that would be i would say that there is a broader uh spiritual reality of cleansing that is often spoken of with reference to water that baptism participates in but does not exhaust and not every reference to cleansing with water is a reference directly to baptism though baptism will recall it and this is again why as you get into this there the linguistic complexity is unavoidable and i would just say i just think as soon as you start pressing into what does baptismal regeneration mean a lot of the the neatness around it starts to fall away pretty quickly so i would say it throughout the old testament the language of cleansing water is often used in contexts that i don't think are plausibly taken to refer to baptism ezekiel 16 9 ezekiel 36 25 there's lots of sprinkling language too which i so ezekiel 36 25 talks about i will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean it's talking about the holy spirit being given being given a new heart i think it's talking about regeneration now when the new testament picks up this language which i actually think the verb sprinkling they are though not positive might be referring to the blood sprinkling ceremonies and kind of mixing metaphors but when the new testament picks up this language none of us think it's always talking about baptism and a lot of times people insist that on you know if it's water it's got to be baptism when you're talking about and the camera will come just right back when you're talking about like john 3 but you just keep going in john to john 4 and the woman at the well and no one takes all of these references to water as literal or as baptism in fact in john 7 38 and 39 jesus speaks of water flowing within okay i think this is the common imagery from ezekiel 36 and elsewhere and john is explicit he says he said this about the spirit so what i would say is when we look to the texts where it's talking about that are often stacked up as proofs of baptismal regeneration many of them not only are not necessary to read as directly referring to baptism rather than recalling baptism as they refer to the thing it points to so the the things signified rather than the sign but many of them are awkward to take in that way uh it just occurred to me as i was thinking about this over the last two days with hebrews 10. um in the injunction there hebrews 10 19-25 there's the appeal this is the first passage i ever preached on so i always i love this passage but it's a calling to keep going to church basically and it's spoken to christians and uh drawing near to god okay and then there's the injunction having our consciences cleansed and then it says having our bodies washed with pure water now these are already baptized christians the very next sentence is hold fast your profession of faith okay uh he's already talked about washings as an elementary part of the faith that we're moving beyond in hebrews 6 2. how do you get what does it mean to wash your body with pure water if you're already baptized so um it looks to me like that text is talking about the spiritual cleansing that baptism points to now that will recall baptism baptism is the fulfillment of that baptism points to that but it's not directly baptism itself similarly with ephesians 5 26 where there's the reference to the church being cleansed um by water through the word and i think this is drawing from ezekiel 16 9 where god is speaking to israel and he says i bathed you with water okay and when you've got a collective entity like the church or israel that is cleansed with water the question is when did that happen if that's baptism literally there was no collective baptizing of the entire church i think it's talking about the um the spiritual cleansing that christ affected through his death that baptism points to i could go on with these other passages just for the sake of time i'll just say there is linguistic complexity in how and whether you're talking about the thing itself or the thing as illustrative and as symbolical in the function that it that it plays i i want to get to acts chapter 10 and cornelius in the relationship between conversion baptism regeneration but before we go there just for the sake of the audience um i could have missed it but maybe if i missed it they did too so that's helpful going through the various passages uh where water is referenced and questioning whether these types are valid or not um i think that'll be fruitful for people just in a in a quick answer for the specific types uh that were drawn out uh in the question of the crossing of the red sea and the flood uh maybe even if you just want to pick the flood as we've got that in first peter 3 there do you see that as a type of baptism and is that the point of maybe pointing towards baptism or the thing that baptism causes anyway i just want to get clarity on that before we moved on yeah yeah thank you for uh clarifying that i do think it is certainly a type in fact peter uses the greek word anti-t-bone okay so it's he calls it it's usually just translated like i think the esv is like this refers to baptism but he's saying it's an anti-type of baptism so yes the typology is explicit to be brief since you asked for brevity i would simply say i don't think that typology results in baptismal regeneration i don't think that follows from the typology thanks that's helpful i just want to make sure if people missed that or they're wondering the relationship between those things that they they got some clarity on that so now going to acts chapter 10 it's the story of cornelius and many people will probably be familiar with it if they're not they can go ahead and look that up and i'm sure you'll give a little bit of it here but could you flesh out how this story of cornelius and peter you know seeing his conversion and saying well who can stand in the way of him being baptized how does that inform your view of baptism specifically in relation to this question of baptismal regeneration okay i would say with respect to acts 10 as well as the other four pivotal texts that i see in acts with regard to baptism on this question acts 2 pentecost acts 8 acts 9 and acts 19. i would say that in all of these without exception spirit baptism and water baptism are not coincident and so that now now let's try to be as fair as possible on this these are unique circumstances some of these passages are strange for all of us especially acts 8. and the counter-argument of course is that these are redemptive historically unique events that are showing the expansion of the gospel to new groups such as the gentiles and acts 10 with cornelius and i would say that's plausible though the text doesn't say that but i'm not sure that that necessarily drains them from relevance to this question and the simple observation would be that in every one of these cases without exception baptism is not coincident water baptism and spirit baptism are not coincident so with cornelius i would say cornelius is the scenario johann gerhardt acknowledges and the john metaphor response to the gospel holy spirit reception speaking in tongues peter says look they got the spirit just as we have therefore baptism i would say that's the pattern i would say that's paul even paul in acts 9 it says that when ananias lays hands on him that he receives the spirit and is no longer blind subsequent to that he is then baptized now if the response to this is oh these are exceptional circumstances these are exceptions my question would be how many exceptions do we need before we start stop calling it the exception and start calling it more of the norm because i see that circumstance what happens to cornelius over and over and over in my ministry so how many exceptions do we need meanwhile we've got not a single example of a rule against which they are measured there's not a single example of someone being regenerated through water baptism to my awareness in the new testament so um i guess i would just say the sort of question would be how many examples of like this would we need without any counter examples before we'd start to say well this looks like more less the exception and more the norm all right um yeah there's there there's plenty i could say in response to that i would say a couple things one is that it's not just that there are tons of exceptions i would say that there are a number of passages that explicitly tell us within various epistles as well as gospels what baptism does and so i would point to texts like like the ones that i had mentioned so so i'm not saying that we take all of our theology directly from the narrative of the book of acts i i think that that is the wrong approach to the doctrine especially when we have very explicit texts and we can look at passages like roman six um i i still hold on very strongly to the typology in in first peter chapter three uh and i think even if you point out the you know of course differences between the flawed and baptism of course there are those differences uh but the question is what are the similarities that the author himself is pointing out he's very explicit that there are two similarities there's the use of water and there is salvation in both in both circumstances so i i think and i hear this a lot where people point out you know well the water didn't really save the ark did and in some ways i say well that's kind of that's an argument with peter you know that that's not an argument with me because peter's the one making the connection peter's the one saying they were safe through water and you are safe through water that isn't baptism so i would point to a number of different texts i think they're you know as again you could point to texas and galatians in the book of romans to speak about about baptism in fact i would say you know nearly every text that speaks about baptism uh that is more than just a narrative about someone being baptized that speaks about the function of baptism i mean nearly every time it is regenerative language or language of salvation or forgiveness or uniting to christ something that is indeed indeed salvific so i i would say when we're looking at at the book of acts that i i do believe that there is is uniqueness to the redemptive historical situation that is in the book of acts and you know that's something that's not just true from my perspective in terms of baptism but that's true from any perspective of things like the spiritual gifts and the apostolic authority and you know everybody's going to acknowledge that there are differences in terms of the initial spreading of the gospel in the book of acts than the normative function in the church in some way so i think the question we have to ask is how is it that baptism plays into that now the first instance of the baptisms in the book of acts i would say is about baptism regeneration uh i would say that that in acts chapter 2 verse 38 um you know i think we we have an instance where we have in verse 37 a number of individuals asking basically about how they can be saved uh essentially we're told that they're cut to the heart they're feeling guilty christ the messiah has been rejected they say what shall we do about the guilt that they have and so what peter says here is a solution to the question that they are asking to the problem that they raise and in his solution he speaks about repentance and baptism in the name of jesus christ for the forgiveness of sins and the consequence of that is that there is reception of the holy spirit now i i've read plenty of commentators who tried to make make the case uh that it is indeed actually the the profession of faith there that receives the forgiveness of sins and baptism is simply a sign of that i i contextually there in linguistically i just don't see it in the text um and especially in light of everything else that we see throughout the rest of the new testament it seems very consistent to me that that's what's what's going on so i would say that when we look at the book of acts we have a lot of weird scenarios like we we have first in acts chapter 2 we have a scenario where baptism seems to be pretty clearly tied to the forgiveness of sins and the reception of the spirit uh but then we do have you know uh acts chapter eight and acts chapter 10 we have instances where you know we have people who in acts chapter take at chapter 8 already believe and then they have to have the laying on of hands and receive the holy spirit so they don't even receive the spirit in faith they receive it when they have a later laying on of hands and then we have you know acts chapter 10 which is the circumstance that was addressed where there is the giving of the holy spirit and then baptism does does come later so we've got kind of every possible circumstance here uh it seems that in acts it's kind of all over the place like it's not that clear uh for for anybody i don't think i don't think it fits if we're going to say this is normative we don't actually really have a normative paradigm in x in terms of the timing of all of these things and when exactly they fit together so i think we all have to wrestle with that and say well why is it that that this is so this is so odd now um i mean nearly you know any commentator on x is going to recognize that there is the act of pentecost and there are these kind of mini pentecost throughout the book and so we do have these kind of big givings of the spirit where there is the spirit first descends on this new group of people we have the samaritans and we have the gentiles um later so uh i think it is the most sensible explanation that there has to be some kind of redemptive historical uniqueness especially in acts chapter eight because you're i think you're going to struggle with how then to to define that if the spirit i mean does the spirit come through the laying on of hands is it you know like chrismation like the eastern orthodox church would say because they try to make a case from that from that text often um that hey this is what happens they believed and they still have the spirit so they need this extra laying out of hands from the apostles so i think all of us kind of have to wrestle a bit with with those texts i just don't think it's that straightforward for for anybody because the pattern doesn't always seem the same