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25. COVENANT

As Christ is the visible expression of God, never doubt that what He said expresses the very truth. Thus we see the breadth of His love (Matthew.23:37, John 3:16‑19), but we also see the extreme narrowness of that covered bridge of His covenant. Embracive in attitude, He is yet direct, decisive and determinate in procedure. As a narrow pass may lead on to a magnificent view of scenic panorama, so the covenant of God, now in its fullest form, the New Covenant has an intensive side far more stringent than the most comprehensive check for stress in aircraft bodies; but once this is so, the wide ranging flights amaze the passengers.

Or what is it like ? It resembles the flow of water over a weir channel, where here only may it depart; but once it flows out this way, the world is before it, roving and meeting need as its plies its way through prepared paths that reach to the uttermost parts.

Did not Christ declare (Matthew 7:13-14),

"Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it" !

Again, He announced this in parallel harmony (John 10:10):

"I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly."

We sometimes hear of the five points of Calvinism: carefully construed these merely essentialise some of the material we have considered, at important points. They do not of course cover all that matters: merely indicating certain areas for watching. These may be seen in some detail in The Biblical Workman Ch. 8 where linked.

They include Total Depravity, in which we see that in our flesh there is no good thing (Romans 7:18); and then Unconditional Election which shows us that it is not a matter of our meeting certain conditions in order to please God, for He elects without respect to foreseen faith or works, those whom He foreknew.

Again, there is a Limited Atonement, for Christ bore the sin ONLY of those whom in fact He has covered, saying,

IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE THAT I AM HE, YOU WILL

DIE IN YOUR SINS ( John 8:24), and again,

YOU DO NOT BELIEVE BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT OF MY SHEEP

AS I TOLD YOU. MY SHEEP HEAR MY VOICE (John 10:26);

while Paul says, HE WHO DID NOT SPARE HIS OWN SON, BUT DELIVERED

HIM UP FOR US ALL, HOW SHALL HE NOT WITH HIM

FREELY GIVE US ALL THINGS ? WHO SHALL LAY

ANYTHING TO THE CHARGE OF GOD'S ELECT!

in Romans 8:32.

What do we find from these things ? They do not believe BECAUSE they are not His; they keep their sin BECAUSE THEY DO NOT BELIEVE, laying it on Him, hence reserving it to themselves to their own destruction, and having it not borne on the Cross. "ALL THINGS" are not available to those in hell, and without Christ; yet those for whom Christ was actually "delivered up", in sacrificial format functioning as their sin‑bearer, these inherit all things. Hence His actual payment in process, His ransom transfer of His righteousness to sinners in their receptive repentance and their sin to Himself is an EXCLUSIVE apportionment. Food is not thrust into closed mouths, 'money' into closed bank accounts, truth into intransigeant hearts, or redemption into slaves by inveterate preference. In short, those for whom Christ is thus delivered up, these are identical with the people of God, as in Isaiah 53, where the 'we' whose sins are laid on Him, are those healed by His ministrations!

Many become confused here, but it is perfectly simple if you look at what is written with eyes unscrewed up. HE LOVES enough to OFFER to all, in sincerity, truth and indeed passion; but He transfers only to those who receive Him. However great the bounty on behalf of man (Titus 2-3, I John 2:2), and it IS wide-ranging in this way, for God did indeed so love the world that He gave His only begotten Son, yet it is payable only to faith.

This gives us the T, U, L, of the acronym. Now is the 'I' . It is IRRESISTIBLE GRACE.

IRRESISTIBLY God draws His own, HIS SHEEP, whom He has infallibly known in His own truth, His limited attainment by His limited atonement, before time so much as existed! (Ephesians 1:4, Romans 8:29ff.). In fact, these hear His voice, as Christ stated, and there simply is no way they will fail to do so. Fusion of opposites only leads to confusion of concepts. IF you want Him, take Him; but then it will no longer be YOU who are in charge of your own life, as Paul puts it, "I have been crucified with Christ: it is not longer I who live but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me" - Galatians 2:20. You cannot be YOURSELF inc. as a member of the kingdom of heaven; but on the other hand, you DO remain very much an individual, for such has God made, and the relationship though indeed that of LORD and servant is expanded into friend to friend, as with Abraham (cf. James 2:23, John 15:14).

We who live in the truth, abhor the lie, so that we find our lives AS creations in fact, DERIVATIVE in function, but when we realise that obvious fact (cf. Romans 1:17ff.), and cease to rebel, why then the actuality is that God so loves us that He would make us His own children by adoption (Ephesians 1:5ff.), sealing us with His own Spirit.

And these they are, as we have seen, HIS and so HE keeps them:

"I GIVE UNTO THEM ETERNAL LIFE, AND THEY SHALL

NEVER PERISH: NEITHER SHALL ANYONE SNATCH THEM

OUT OF MY HAND" (John 10:27‑28).

This is called necessary PERSEVERANCE, and the acronym is TULIP ends.

Always however read this IN THE LIGHT OF SCRIPTURE, and NEVER the other way around. As a Presbyterian Church we set THE BIBLE ABOVE all other things and books. Nevertheless, these things are clear in the Scripture, and like other parts of it, we hold them. God has loved all, known and taken His own and keeps them.

How does this, however, relate to the New Covenant ? It serves merely illustrate its definiteness. It is not philosophic party that matters, or is indeed even acceptable (Colossians 2:8, cf. I Corinthians 3:3ff.), but the tuition of the Almighty who humbles Himself to behold the things of men and devised, crafted and conferred on us in HIS OWN WAY.

After all, if you were being instructed how to fly an aircraft, you would not, presumably, resent or resist the facts of meteorology and fluid dynamics, but rather learn and digest them, moving your craft within these realities while, we hope, enjoying it! God by His word introduces us to the facts: there is neither need, call nor wisdom in exceeding what is written, far less in striving about it, carrying this or that to unwonted extremes, in ignorance of other scripture, and without warrant in the first place, alas, a condition and function of sin so strong, that at times, like lemon rind in a cake, it can seem all but prevalent!

Such things are to be avoided. Is not the liberty of the word of God in its vast amplitude sufficient! and does not the Lord Himself open the eyes (I John 2:27), and while we must be willing to learn from one another, there is neither learning nor knowledge of God which presumes into party hysterics, outré ambience or fallacious fondness for this or that, as if a face were a nose, or a heart had but a mitral valve.

It is now apt to consider the New Covenant in its institution.

Christ said, at the Last Supper:

FOR THIS IS MY BLOOD OF THE NEW COVENANT WHICH IS SHED
FOR MANY FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS (Matthew 26:28 - bold added).

Those to be covered were to come to this supper, and the one who was, as Jesus said, a devil (John 6:70) went out.

There are many who part from it (Matthew 7:14), or will not come to it, finding no ultimate place in their hearts for such things. Parched and astray, they love to wonder... and as they wonder, wander. In themselves in talent and attainments, they are no worse than are we who believe, but the love of Christ has not liberated them through the atonement, and they resist. Indeed, hear Stephen speaking of some who, even in close quarters, rigorously fight to avoid it:

YOU STIFF‑NECKED AND UNCIRCUMCISED IN HEART AND EARS! YOU ALWAYS

RESIST THE HOLY SPIRIT: AS YOUR FATHERS DID, SO DO YOU! (Acts 7:51).

The difference at the practical and personal level is this: GOD'S PEOPLE HAVE COME IN THROUGH THE NARROW WAY, they have had an operation in the region of their hearts, and God has taken away the stony heart (whatever the variety of stone, even 'precious' stone ... ) and replaced it with 'a heart of flesh', that is a re‑natured heart, re‑constructed back to the design norm ( Ezekiel 11:19, Colossians 3:10), which, being in the image of God, is wonderful in opportunity, marvellous in scope and above all, adapted for communication and fellowship with Him!

God KNOWS His own: is it not wonderful to hear these words of the Lord Jesus Christ:

IF ANYONE WANTS TO DO HIS WILL, HE SHALL KNOW CONCERNING THE DOCTRINE, WHETHER IT IS FROM GOD OR WHETHER I SPEAK ON MY OWN AUTHORITY (John 7:17), and again,

IF GOD WERE YOUR FATHER YOU WOULD LOVE ME,
FOR I PROCEEDED FORTH AND CAME FROM GOD:
NOR HAVE I COME OF MYSELF, FOR HE SENT ME (John 8:42).

Is there not a peculiar beauty, as of a dawn suffusing the landscape with light, in this passage ?
How secure is the word, are the works and is the knowledge of God, and how awesome and glorious is the privilege of actually belonging to His family, of being a child of God (I John 3:1‑13, of being able to call Him, 'Father!' (Romans 8:16).

There are then those who are the Lord's and whom He has won. They contribute, we saw, no good as ground of their salvation, are saved on account of no personal merit: but the love has reached them, and they are contacted and contracted souls, covered by the 'blood' - that sacrificial, vicarious, substitutionary, ransoming death as Redeemer of Christ, that life for life transaction of His (Romans 5:9ff., Galatians 3:1-13, II Cor. 5:17ff., Isaiah 61:10); and they kept by the power of the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

He is the present and perfect Saviour before the face of the Father, who shares the throne with His Father: our eternal Lord. ( Revelation 22:3‑5,7:15‑17, Luke 1:33, Daniel 7:14). We WORSHIP HIM
(Psalm 45:1‑6,11, John 20:27‑29, Revelation 5:12‑14, Revelation 22:3,13‑17,21:22‑23, 5:13, John 9:38).

The Old Testament shows the old covenant or solemn agreement which God exposed, proclaimed and instituted. This, God made His own, and He gave the new and developed, completed covenant, the New Covenant, which fulfils the promises, procedures and preparations of the Old, being entirely symmetrical with it, and constituting in itself the 'course' which follows and completes. Basically, the Old Covenant descried Christ coming, and about to pay for the sins of the redeemed, whose Redeemer He is; and the New Covenant acknowledging that He has come, institutes direct the provisions of the Son who has by this time, done the works, proclaiming: IT IS FINISHED.

In HIM, is our rest; in HIM is our law and HIM we worship, as Hebrews

11:39‑40 tells us:

                      AND ALL THESE, HAVING OBTAINED A GOOD TESTIMONY
                      THROUGH FAITH, DID NOT RECEIVE THE PROMISE,
                      GOD HAVING PROVIDED SOME BETTER THING FOR US,
                      THAT THEY SHOULD NOT BE MADE PERFECT APART FROM US.

The sacrifices, the condemnation of sin, the redemption, the blood, the mercy, the offering, the pardon, the king's commands, all these things are in the Old Testament; and they are combined with the foreseeing afar off of the One who would actually put PAID! to the sins by a sufficient and perfect sacrifice, a man offered for all but paying for those of mankind who are His, replacing the pictorial displays of animal sacrifices, making the point, with Himself, making the payment which for all time and all the saints, covers in full the negative account reckoned to sin, with that infinite positive account of righteousness which is Christ's own, II Corinthians 5:19‑21.

Let us now consider for a moment in some more detail this development.

BADGES OF COVENANT

Abraham received the old covenant, and became a vehicle for the confrontation of a lost world by God.

Through his descendants came Moses with the law, and by the direct act of God (through the incarnation of the everlasting One, the Christ, the Lord, through the virgin birth of Mary - Matthew 1:23), to man was given opportunity to receive the New Covenant (or Testament - Hebrews 9:16‑24). This time it was personally presented by God Himself on earth, and simply not through a called and sent agent, and it was brought to effectiveness by the works, words, sacrifice and bodily resurrection of God as man, the inviolate, sinless Christ Himself ( Acts 2:36,24, Romans 4:25,5:1, Hebrews 9:24‑10:22), of whom this was said as God spoke to Joseph (Matthew 1:20-21): .

^"But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared
unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, you son of David, fear not to take unto you Mary
your wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
And she shall bring forth a son,
and you shall call His name JESUS: for He shall save his people from their sins."

Here is the only Saviour, and the only Saviour is God! (Isaiah 43:10-11). There is no other name given to man. In Him, is the covenant, from Him is the life, for Him is man, woman and child to serve: for His is the kingdom, the honour, the glory and the power. Substitutes fail like grass in late Summer; but His power is forever green. Spring does not yield His products to the burning, nor does any Winter chill them, but they are His forever (John 3:16, I John 5:11ff.).

Christ, then, spoke the words, did the necessary task, lived the untarnished life justice demands, laboured at the Cross, rose from the tomb, confirmed the covenant and remains ready to judge on its terms ( Romans 3:21‑4:25).

In this He fulfilled the components of the faith of Abraham, before the law of Moses, so that we also have that faith in its fuller form of completion in Christ, the 'seed' promised to Abraham through whom all the nations of the world were to be (and are) blessed.

At the COMMUNION, or Lord's ‑Supper, you drink (figuratively, but by faith, accepting for your soul the death of Him who dies for you and lives for you and in you ‑Hebrews 7:25, John 14:19, 6:50ff.) ... you drink the blood of the New Covenant - as Christ said, Matthew 26:28. In this solemn pledge of God, the language of ink is confirmed with the 'lanquage' of blood; for Christ finished the task necessary for our deliverance, who believe, and thus we receive Him.

We read: "THIS IS THE BLOOD OF THE NEW COVENANT WHICH IS SHED FOR MANY FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS." As it is offered, so it is received. NEVER has any offering been effectual which was not received (Deuteronomy 29:19ff.) by the one hearing its provisions, what it had to say, without faith.

In and through Him, the charges against us as sinners, are dropped, justice rests, mercy smiles ( James 2:13, Psalm 85:10-13) - or rejoices, and triumphs: it is a beautiful picture, as lovely as the cross was a massive marring, exhibitive of the sin which Christ was bearing. In the very face of judgment, now in the Covenant, MERCY REJOICES! What heart has God! Who would not love Him who first loved us (I John 4:10).

In this New Covenant, then, with its grounds of acceptance displayed figuratively, but in figures depicting the reality (John 6:62-63 - He stressed that He was DEPARTING this earth and that His words were spirit and life) in the Communion, God remembers our sins no more ( Hebrews 8:22). He will NOT bring any charge against His elect, though of course He may child-train them Romans 832-39. NOTHING shall separate them from His love. NOW they are very members of His household, the HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH (Galatians 6:10) and CITIZENS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (Philippians 3:20, John 18:36,Luke 23:43,I Thessalonians 5:9‑10).

Thus you drink this blood 'by faith' and similarly take this bread signifying the bruised body. Christ was not AT THE LAST SUPPER shedding His blood or breaking His body; that would, as we have been reminded in John Foxe's records of the martyrs, have been suicide, so that in that case Christ would not have been slain by the wicked hands of men, but by His own (Acts 2:23).

No, such trifling nonsense, myths and fables as the Anglican prayer book has rightly depicted their category, are mere mirage, as if by saying He was the door, He would expect us to bring oil for the hinges. Let us avoid childish misrepresentation of sacred truth, an unwise rejection of His own words to guide and gird our understanding on this topic (cf. SMR pp. 1032-1088H, esp. 1086ff.). His offering that availed is ONCE only, is with BLOOD and with SUFFERING. It is unrepeated, unrepeatable, being wrought BY HIMSELF as He categorically affirmed, and by NO ONE ELSE (John 10:18, Hebrews 9:12-14, 23-28).

As Hebrews indeed reminds us, He had the normal body of normal man, incarnated therein, yet without sin ( Hebrews 2:10-14), and is in heaven ( Acts 3:19‑21, John 6:61ff.). If GOD says that is where He is, we had better not contest it, as if our physics of mere beginning knowledge, transcended His awareness of where HE IS!

Thus, as they drank at the Last Supper, Christ was showing His coming death (for us, now past but with ever present results‑ I John 1:7‑2:1) on the one hand, and on the other displaying our need to take Him as sacrifice with all the intimate personal reality which eating signifies: individual and actual. Thus we witness publicly to these things, a good confession. (For more on the Lord's Supper, see Spiritual Refreshings Ch. 14).

In accord with such a theme, Christ said:

DO THIS IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME

(Luke 22:19).

That was the instruction. It was to call to mind, to place before the heart, to inspire the spirit with this simple but profound token of His action. It showed as He indicated in John 6, sacrificial substitution, spiritual nutrition because of His life which is forevermore, never annullable, for death could not hold Him (Acts 2:24), conveying the thought to His actual work of salvation on the Cross, and all the purity which made it effectual, beforehand, as He sanctified Himself for His brethren (John 17:19), the eternal life it conferred since death was overcome, and which He Himself provided, since this was His own (I John 1:1-4).

When they were amazed as He spoke of the absolute need to 'eat' His flesh ( John 6:51‑54,60),
He said:

DOES THIS OFFEND YOU?

WHAT THEN IF YOU SHOULD SEE THE SON OF MAN ASCEND WHERE HE WAS BEFORE ?

IT IS THE SPIRIT WHICH GIVES LIFE; THE FLESH PROFITS NOTHING. THE WORDS

THAT I SPEAK TO YOU ARE SPIRIT AND THEY ARE LIFE. BUT THERE ARE SOME

OF YOU WHO DO NOT BELIEVE.

While then He removed any gross and ridiculous misunderstanding, what it did NOT remove was the fine and finely tuned reality, which required faith, not in irrationality, but in the most reasonable need for man to repent of what kills life, sin, and to find in the only available and just place, the redemption which is provided by God Himself, come as Christ.

The difficulty was not that He was giving a spiritual illustration of the need and necessity of His death and of the personal, private, individual and particular appropriation of it to cover one's sins: it was rather this, that some did not believe. That is still the difficulty; indeed, it is more than this, for there is no other covenant to come (Ephesians 1:10, Revelation 22-23). The New Covenant in sublimity has completed the Old, and each has played its part in teaching and reaching this consummation. Now, those who tread under foot the blood of this covenant, have only a "certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries" ( Hebrews 10:27‑28).

GOD has SAID and DONE ALL: to despise ( by not even eating, not even taking or receiving this prodigy of pardon, pity and mercy is like wilfully handling radioactive materials with no protection) !

The responsibility is both awesome and appalling, but many go that way.

It is not other, than in this way, that Christ is the LAMB of God,
the DOOR

and the SHEPHERD;

but the meaning is as clear as the day is bright, and

when we read of CHRIST OUR PASSOVER (I Corinthians 5:7),
we know that He, as man,
has taken the pictorial role assigned to the lamb of sacrifice and has made it His own
(Psalm 40: LO, I COME, A BODY HAST THOU PREPARED FOR ME ... ).

As Paul puts it:

      AND YOU, WHO ONCE WERE ALIENATED AND ENEMIES IN YOUR MIND
      BY WICKED WORKS, YET NOW HE HAS RECONCILED
      IN THE BODY OF HIS FLESH THROUGH DEATH, |
      TO PRESENT YOU HOLY, AND BLAMELESS
      AND IRREPROACHABLE IN HIS SIGHT ( Colossians 1:21‑22).

Receiving then these words which are spirit and are life, and realising this:

      HE WHO HAS THE SON HAS LIFE,
      BUT HE WHO DOES NOT HAVE THE SON
      DOES NOT HAVE LIFE (I John 5:12),

we take the communion, 'as often as you do it' in remembrance of Him...

for this is what He said.

Recall now that at the Passover, they ate the Lamb slain. The blood showed the death in their stead, through their admission of need and of their guilt. Hands might be placed on it, confessing the sin,
the believer transferring the guilt.

The meat eaten was an expression of the one who was their life, contributing its own for their sustenance, both pictorially taking away their sin, and yet nourishing them. Thus Christ, the bread of life and the Passover is exhibiting in multiple functions.

At Communion, each may say: Christ died for me, and I have taken Him personally as my Saviour; broken, He acquits me, and in His holiness does He make me whole. Once He saved me; always by this fact and act of His identity, death and resurrection, I am assured. He administers all, and I, having the Son, have life, as token of which I eat this bread. Never do I exhaust the love or the redemption or the remedy or the mercy of my Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep, nor will I ever perish with such a 'bread of heaven' as this, once eaten (John 6:51-53 - as with the water, once drunk - in John 4, so that one never thirsts again).

Such a Lord who by the New Covenant has provided both the dismissal of penalty and the place of acceptance in Him, the beloved is impermeable, impassable, irresistible, omnipotent, committed in word and by His own deed of payment, acquiring His own by express gift, costing Him His life, and transferring its eternity to His own (Romans 5:1-11, 8:29ff.). Never can I outrun the power and perfection of this Christ who lives in me, and whom I again publicly confess in just these, His terms. I am only a sinner saved. It is HIS greatness and HIS actions and His Person which is my glory (Jeremiah 9:23‑24). There and there alone is where I shall therefore place the glory, in Him who came, in Him who sent Him, in Him who applies this salvation, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God without end.

In some such way as this, and thus justly in a way the believer can and should appropriate, MANY persons taking Communion are making personal testimony in personal terms concerning the one Christ who saves and keeps all who come by what He is and what He has done, receiving Him according to His word, by FAITH.

The Church thereby is brought back to the Cross, and as Paul says:

GOD FORBID THAT IS SHOULD GLORY EXCEPT IN THE

CROSS OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, BY WHOM THE

WORLD IS CRUCIFIED TO ME, AND I TO THE WORLD

Galatians 6:14 ..

that Cross which in turn betokens the entire plan of salvation in the love-depicting, justice-meeting, mercy-sending sacrificial terms of which we have found our eternal place in God (I John 5:13, Romans 8:31 ff., Philippians 1:6). It is not to be taken slavishly this number of times, or that, for this is mere intrusion; but AS OFTEN as it is taken, freely and with heart and faith, it is to be done in remembrance of Him, not in substitution for Him or His sacrifice, not as if it were a mode of salvation: as God said, He will destroy the circumcised with the uncircumcised (Jeremiah 9), and as you see in Isaiah 1, He HATES formalism, formalities and ceremonies ORDERED BY HIM being totally disregarded when they, and not what they signify, are gloried in, made the point. God is a Spirit, and He does not praise plaster of Paris covering or coatings when the actual body of man, his life and heart, mind and spirit are needed!

For more on this theme, see Spiritual Refreshings... Ch. 14.

Now while this Lord's Supper is a badge of believing, continually exhibited,
what is the formal badge of ENTRY to these things,

to the New Covenant and to its varied provisions ?

What is its counterpart at the entry level ? Faith is always the actual, practical thing; but what is its token, parallel to the Lord's Supper.

This of course is Baptism.

Let us first consider, the INITIAL AVOIDANCE OF UNBIBLICAL EXTREMES

A FIRST WORD ON BAPTISM

On the topic of baptism, see baptism by fire and baptism by water, at Questions and Answers 10, and 11.

Meanwhile, the profound little book by the noted Jay Adams, The Meaning and Mode of Baptism is a fount of scholarship and should be read carefully. It brings to light things often omitted, but which in many cases should be included!

Baptism is to symbolise

v a falling on people of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2,10), or a transforming resting of Him on them, to bring the realities of Christ (cf. I Corinthians 10:2 – where they were baptized “into Moses” as we “into Christ Jesus”, Romans 6:2), and

v a cleansing thereby, through the only stated mode, sprinkling (Ezekiel 36:25-26) for the New Covenant, and the normal one for cleansing (as in Exodus 24:6ff., where the blood was sprinkled on the book and the people, and almost innumerable times in Leviticus for cleansing, including that on the altar in the Holy of Holies, Leviticus 16:19, with parallel in Hebrews 9:14ff.).

The reality of baptism in the Spirit is for EVERY CHRISTIAN AT CONVERSION (I Corinthians 12:13) “into one body” in Christ. This is by the New Covenant, and that involves crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, in which, through the crucifixion of the “old man” and the coming of the “new man” the Christian has joined, as a beneficiary (Colossians 3:10).

Of course, the FORM of baptism, perfectly representative of the falling or resting on people of the Spirit of God, and symbolically in the traditional, biblical way, cleansing in the process, would find it hard to represent crucifixion with water, either in its purity or in its nature!

Being ‘dipped’ into water, for example, is wholly contrary to being such that you could say with Paul, “I am crucified with Christ”, for you come out again; nor would a dripping relic, emerging from water, in any way do more than mock the glory of the triumphant resurrection of Christ. Nor would Romans 6 do, for it involves planting and crucifixion as well as “burial” with Christ, and is dealing with the realities of being Christ’s, not some sacrament which, after all, does NOT do what can ONLY be done by faith and by Christ. There however we are dealing with the ACTUAL transformation and sanctification, not some set of symbols.

Baptism merely signifies what it is ordained to signify, not a crucifixion or a planting. How soon would you then be digging up your “plant” as in Romans 6 ? The confusion of the SYMBOL and the substance here is inexcusable, as is the failure to realise what Christ said in John 13, where HE REFUSED even to wash Peter’s face and hands, in a ceremony definitely dealing with “having part” with Him, to the point that it was a confrontation. HANDS AND FEET only was the Old Testament based sufficiency (Exodus 30:17-22), ruling out the sacramentalism against which Peter spoke so strongly in I Peter 3:21, like Christ, removing any chance of confusing reality and ceremony entirely!

Here the apostles are being made international “priests” as indeed are all believers (I Peter 2:9), just as Christ in His baptism, was of course not being treated as a "sinner" but as a priest after the order of Melchisedek (Psalm 110), duly sprinkled as Levites were for their work (Numbers 8:7). The water set them apart and cleansed them in preparation for a sacrifice of young bulls, whereas of course, with Christ there was, and needed to be, NO SACRIFICE BUT HIS OWN. Baptism as a sinner was out of the question (as John the Baptist clearly saw), but baptism as a “priest”on this new scale of Melchisedek (Hebrews 7:17) was indeed not only in order, but biblically proper, to "fulfil all righteousness”.

Crucifixion and resurrection are in Christ's covenant, and are brought to light in it, but these the baptism symbol does not illustrate, and cannot. Christ and His covenant bring this, but the baptism is into Christ Himself, as stated in I Corinthians 12.

There is no (scriptural) future in doing what Romanism does,

making the sacrament self-important,

rather than Christ without whom it has no meaning,

and in whom It cannot be realised in its significance except when faith comes.

Thus this error the Bible removes with rigour. It is symbolical, as is the bread and grape juice, in the Lord's Supper (which has its own portrayal of death), and no effort should be made to confuse the two. Nor should the opposite extreme be indulged in, as if there was nothing to the meaning of baptism but actual salvation. There is such a thing as an affiancing, even for marriage, and there is moreover a covenantal commitment according to the special mercies of God, of what for the time one must if you will, administer, before the age of discretion comes. In this, baptism shows clearly, not some mere pious hope or self-imposed act of dedication, but the ONLY WAY any dedication could possibly have any fruition in the kingdom of heaven, that is by the washing of regeneration.

This is symbolised not as an instant gratification, like some sort of spiritual Mars bar, but in life and before God as expressive of

1) the parent's express hope that in the only way God may be approached,
this child will come and

2) the parent's submission to God, of this child, for upbringing in all the ways of the covenant, with

3) the sealing of the child with the appropriate MARK (very different from the mark of the beast, but a mark nonetheless, a benevolent one),
which is that not of prayer by itself, but of performance, that of Christ, in terms of which alone anyone in the human race, prospective or receptive, can come to the Father.

In the Bible, sprinkling as in Ezekiel and Exodus and Leviticus and Hebrews, signifies cleansing in the covenant, and in the New Testament, baptism signifies in immediate context of happenings in Acts, the falling or resting on them of the Holy Spirit, and baptism into CHRIST, with cleansing in the normal way, endemic in the Old Testament. It is moreover a matter of “to you and your children” and “your household” as in Acts 2:39 and 16:31, and in no way implies that God has changed His entire disposition towards man, as if He now repented of the idea that unless Moses had His covenantal symbol put on his children, he would die! (Exodus 4:22ff.). He has not changed either in making some kind of sacramental regeneration, the very stuff of His abhorrence with misused ceremonies as in Isaiah 1, or in no longer wanting the covenantal seal. Both these unscriptural extremes should be avoided. No such announcement has He made, nor any such alteration in His divine perspective!

Thus baptism does not separate the ACTUAL REALITY from faith, when it comes. In the meantime, as always in the unchanging God, who fulfils but does not rescind (Matthew 5:17-20), the SYMBOL is implanted on the household, in obedience to the setting apart of all things for holiness and testimony, each in its place. When age comes, then the responsibility passes to the person; in the meantime, it is for the parent publicly to attest, as God did for all, young and old, in the Red Sea (I Corinthians 10:1ff.), whose they are in the hearts of those who can obey. ONLY when faith came, could salvation come, then as now. In fact, many of those who were “baptised into Moses” in the Red Sea crossing, did not come to faith (Hebrews 4:1ff., I Cor. 10). They were all however covered in symbol, as a testimony to the Lord, just as in the day of atonement (Leviticus 16), though this did not save their souls in itself, merely depicting the provision (Deuteronomy 29:19ff., Jeremiah 9:25-26, cf. Ezekiel 14:3).

Meanwhile, reading God's mind and changing His stated principles is unwise. It is better to let Him tell it as it is, and then add NOTHING (Proverbs 30:6).

STEP BY STEP DEVELOPMENT ON BAPTISM

Originally, in the Old Testament, and indeed in the time of Abraham before the LAW OF MOSES, there was a clear badge in the form of circumcision (Genesis 17:10) which was given to each male (such was its form) in token of belonging to the covenant people or community of God.

Emphatically, it did NOT save or redeem (Jeremiah 9:25,cf.Jeremiah 4:4, 6:10,44:7,9, Leviticus 26:41). ‑It is important to realise that even in Moses' words of Leviticus 26:41, the UNCIRCUMCISED HEARTS are in view.

What it did do was ACCOMPLISH WHAT GOD ORDERED, instituting a sign, seal and symbol which signified (as we see by tracing the multiplied Old Testament references), union with God (according to the case, formally or functionally, whether with adult or child ‑ indeed babe), cleansing and reception into the people of God, as such a people. See Genesis 17:9ff., its institution for Abraham, where it is a NECESSARY because obvious signal that the child related specifically to the Covenant with Abraham. In this instant generation of ours, it is perhaps hard to realise that this did not instantly make the child a godly person, but instantly showed to all, and attested from Abraham, that this child was as much (while in years before reason) and as surely related to the covenant as he was. ALL that he had in his heart and hand, life and material, belonged to the Lord in the apt and appropriate way, and UNTIL a child became a man who wished otherwise, it was subsumed in this covenant, under the Lord of the estate.

Also of value in seeing the meaning of the circumcision as a required (but not operationally transmutative) sign is Exodus 12:43-44, showing that the initial covenantal rite was required before any of the resultant matters could be engaged in; Exodus 4:24ff., where this sign if absent wilfullly, betokened something close to rebellion, for NOTHING could be exempted, so that Moses was even near to death for the omission. It is not a MODE OF SALVATION but it IS a mode of expressing submission, faith and complete surrender of all that one has to the Lord. It was utterly required. It was not a novelty, not a passing thing: it was vital to the testimony. Deuteronomy 10:16 with 30:6 shows that circumcision represented, amongst other things, as a symbol, the removal of resistance to God, rebellion, impurity of heart, autonomous self-assurance, and of course, by virtue of what it physically WAS, a change at the very level of generation, that is, regeneration.

Indeed, it is not only the removal, but the institution of what comes when the obstruction so symbolised, is removed, that is important. When God says that He will circumcise their HEARTS, the result is that they would love Him! Hence circumcision indicates covenantal initiating symbol, showing in its own language, a cleansed heart, a renewed will, a true love of God opened like a flower, the contempt for rebellion from Him and union with Him. Joshua 5:2ff. shows circumcision, signal of the covenant, as required for a clean and fresh approach to the holy work given to Joshua, before the people moved further into their land, and a signal of the removal of cultural accretion, worldliness and false loyalties. It is in fact in all things totally correlative to what in the New Testament is Baptism.

Like it, it shows the new life, the new way, the covenantal initiation, the removal of the old, the submission to the Saviour, the loyalty of heart, the enabling by God of love to Himself, and the cutting off of a past through the mercy of God, in new ways and new life. In each case, not only is it that the symbol, the sign, that of the covenant concerned, but naturally, since each covenant conveys essentially the same thing, it also shows some of the elements of the everlasting covenant, in the Old Testament in the bud, in the New in the flower, but all on the same bush (as so clearly taught in Romans 11, where God asks Gentiles, nearly grafted into the Old Tree of Israel: Do you bear the roots or do the roots bear you!).

This passage in Romans 11, of course, shows the ridiculous character of trying to divorce the new Branch, the Gentile Church, from the Old Root, the New Covenant from the Old, the concepts of God shown in His basic relationship to man, as in His desire for formal recognition of children in terms of the covenant, in the Old from those in the New! God does not alter His mind about how He wishes to relate to children! What are we to make a new tree, and forget the old roots ? If so, then that tree is alas not of God!

Thus in Romans 6, where the nature of sanctification itself, the substantial thing, is being explored, we find that it involves a comparison with being crucified with Christ, planted with Christ and buried with Christ, the last in baptism. The figures have nothing to do with any ceremony, but everything to do with the realities of what CHRIST DID, which are to be showed vicariously, in this, that His humiliation is used for the removal of our sin with Him, including the sinfulness of our old personalities, with their dominant sinful traits, and His new life is given to us in a new generation, so that we love Him with love shed abroad in our hearts, by the Spirit of God (Romans 5:1-5).

Far more of the qualities signified in circumcision could be indicated, but this suffices.

Thus circumcision betokened becoming a member of the household of faith, but it did not necessarily symbolise, in an infant, faith itself, for it was a comprehensive provision for the whole people of God. God never showed a desire that ONLY BELIEVERS should have the symbol of the covenant, since the covenant^*1 is there and operative, whether one believes in it or not. It is a thing for the whole nation, in the Old Testament, whatever individuals might do in hypocrisy, and for the whole church, in the New Testament, whatever follies individual church members might commit, and of whether it was yet the case that they had come to reason. FAITH requires the latter; the symbol of the covenant does not.

This confusion in defiance of the old 'root' of the olive tree, the work of the hands of God (Romans 11), is one of the sad even grievous failures of many in this generation, as if the concept of democracy and voting were in some way to make God over, in its own image. It is far deeper than this, that the Almighty shows Himself to be; and when it is with God, that you deal, it is unwise to use human politics as a divine framework into which the Almighty must be forced to enter! It can only be done with words, not in fact; so why try!

Let us summarise and concentrate our thought.

The references we have given show the proper signification of circumcision, a rending away of the
'flesh' of the heart and mind and ear and soul, to make for a pardoned, accepted, obedient, covered and commanded people who in sacrifice, pardon and power would show forth the praises of God.

It indicated quite simply that whatever a people of God should be, this was a provision and rule by which to make ceremonial exhibition that such they claimed to be, as such they operated; and it showed it to one and to all.

Without it, there was formal rebellion against the commands of God. With it, there was agreement and a clear request for this divine involvement in the whole life; but the SYMBOL did nothing to guarantee the reality of the faith, of sincerity; and this topic is dealt with in quiet force in Deuteronomy 29:19, where deceptive conformity is singled out for exclusion.

In the New Testament, the apostle Paul is at pains to tell us that whatever it was that circumcision held in its conception and import, this BAPTISM also holds in its conception and import: Colossians 2:11-12 performs this office for us. What then does it say ?

HAVING BEEN BURIED IN BAPTISM (that is, your old nature carried off to its due exclusion from the scene as the ruling force, its day over), YOU ARE THEREBY IN THIS SITUATION: THAT YOU ARE CIRCUMCISED WITH THE CIRCUMCISION MADE WITHOUT HANDS. IF you have the former, THEN you have the latter, Paul shows.

This gives the entire correlative character of these two provisions which both also give the same symbolic signification when used in various contexts: forgiveness, acceptance within the covenant, union with God .. and BOTH EXHIBIT symbolically

- each for its own branch of 'the everlasting gospel' and the provisions of God, the Old and the New Covenants ‑

THE INITIAL FORMAL STEP. You HAD to be circumcised in the Old Covenant; you are to be baptised in the New (cf. Acts 2:38). Neither was dispensable, and neither constituted salvation (as in Deuteronomy 29 and in I Peter 3:21! the parallel is quite complete, as well as explicit here).

Paul tells us that the ONE betokens all the import of the OTHER. IF BAPTISED, THEN CIRCUMCISED.

Thus the MEANINGS (the same) and the TIMING (the first) and the requirement FORMALLY (initial sign) as well as the EQUIVALENCE given by Paul, all these things mutually confirm, and singly attest that there is no change in the heart of God about sin, salvation, sacrifice, the covenant provision for the family: THERE IS FULFILMENT, NOT NEGATION, as Jesus stated. NOTHING is abrogated, and one symbol now replaces the other. No necessity of obedience is removed; no change of heart on the part of God is revealed. Neither have families altered, nor has God.

Hence, with no provision for change or expression of it on this topic, God leaves us to fulfil the covenant sign on just those whom He indicated, at the only time when He specifically signified the scope of the sign: ALL THE BELIEVERS AND ALL THEIR CHILDREN FROM THE EARLIEST AGE. To delete the expression of God on the SUBSTANTIAL MATTER (not a form) OF WHO IS TO RECEIVE THE INITIAL COVENANTAL SIGN, this is to subtract from the word of God. There is no question of fulfilment of some sign in a substance in this; here it is ALL a matter of signs.

It is simply a matter of finding out, by reading, that God is interested (VERY interested ‑Exodus 4:24‑26!) in imparting the covenantal sign to infants; and then following the ONLY direction on this topic, and DOING IT. This is to be accomplished, knowing there is no excuse for pretending this is a past ceremonial matter, for it is in fact an indication of a divine conception, care and covering that affects ALL the family. Only the REQUIRED and decisive symbol of initiation and the prevailing of the covenant has changed, and this expressly as in Colossians, in the equivalence of the meanings and in the nature of the covenant. Indeed, in Romans 4, God is at pains through Paul to make it clear that the essence of the Gospel was in Abraham, and it is the same faith which saves, being in the same God, through the same attribution to us of His own same righteousness, by His own reckoning to faith!

Even the pots and pans must be holy (Zechariah 14:20‑21); how much more are the children! The children of a mixed marriage (I Corinthians 7:14) are not 'holy' only because one parent is a believer, as if this instituted in the household a character which the male, if unbeliever, might treat as dirt: but because the covenant applies, with all its provisions symbolising what is not yet necessarily an actuality of faith.

Even if the husband forbids the symbol, the intent and design are there, and God is a spirit who, though He gives valuable provisions, and requires them, is still a God who knows the heart. Thus the covenantal symbol seals the children. Actually, there is no scope for a husband to prevent this, and a wife would be justified in securing it, since the only authority of the man, is that given by God in biblical terms, and when he insists that his wife sin, he cannot bind it. Nevertheless, since the children are also his, it would be necessary in the end, to waive this point if he insisted, lest it seem a theft of his 'section' of the offspring! It should however in any such case, be made clear to the husband that he is in a dangerous contest with the God who commands this! Further, in the most extreme case, the mother could for her own part, invisibly inscribe the children with baptism, in her own heart and so keep what she can.

The work of the covenant is not removed by man, whether through re-writing what God has said, or simply refusing to obey.

Hence the promise is to you and to those who are afar off and TO YOUR CHILDREN, as Peter puts it
(Acts 2:39) in a most dramatic way signalling that there is indeed no diminution of the divine provision for, interest in and coverage of children, is as surely consequent on the Old Testament as any other divine principle. It is only the pageantry of signs fulfilled in Christ, which is replaced.

Similarly, the continuation of former concepts proper and godly as shown, not cutting off what the Lord has declared to be the direction of His mind, is conveyed by the very language of Acts 16:33, where all the 'household' of jailor were baptised. This is the term, its translation, used for Abraham and HIS house, and the HOUSE after him it was that he was to rule well. Although the salvation would then be to the whole house, this is a structural matter, a household as with Abraham, and does not in itself guarantee by a mere signal, that all will be saved; but that the whole household is now holy, circumscribed by the divine will and way, imprinted with His symbol and overcoated with His specific covenant for family.

If God had changed His mind, such language, such provisions, such appeals and calls could not be better conceived to suppress that fact! It is all precisely in terms of the old tree, the old root, the expressly unchanged divine attitude to man, families and covenant, the old in animal ceremonial, the new in something better than the blood of bulls and goats, even that of Christ who expressly made the new covenant in His own blood (Matthew 26:28-29), the blood of the everlasting covenant (Hebrews 9:14) which cleanses "the conscience from dead works to serve the living God". THIS is the meaning always, and it does not because it cannot change, since God Himself does not change, making the parallels continually and completely, whether in Romans 4, Hebrews, I Peter or elsewhere.

God does not deceive, and having made His mind clear, He uses the parallel and consistent language both practically and conceptually, and as if this were not enough, in Colossians 2 actually TELLS US that the former symbol conveys what the latter does; and now, one of the things the former shows is this: the SCOPE of its impartation. And this ? To ALL the house!

Further, sprinkling is the method of purification normal in the Old Testament for purificatory rites, of which baptism is one (not the less because it is the initiation symbol ‑ John 3:22‑25). In the verses just noted the DISPUTE about purification is shown and STATED to feature baptism. Hence where there is NO statement in the New Testament about the method 'coming up' from a baptism says nothing on whether it was immersion or sprinkling or indeed affusion as has often been shown, so that the method to be preferred is what was normatively used in purificatory rites, which is sprinkling.

While on this point, there is no need to be too emphatic, the facts are there and should be followed. Surely this is good and right, and indeed we see more to the point in Isaiah 52:15 and Ezekiel 36:25, where it is expressly in the New Covenant that sprinkling is carried out, signifying acceptance from outside to the Covenant, and of WATER indeed in the Ezekiel passage. The Jews here in view are simply people coming to the one and only Covenant available (cf. Romans 11), and that is the covenant in Christ (cf. Zechariah 12:10), whom they once rejected as a nation, but who in this prophecy they now return to find in large numbers. Whether the national body or the individual Gentile (cf. Galatians 6), all must come in the same way, and should be using the symbols apt and appropriate for it. That is ‑ sprinkling.

However the 'BAPTISM' (with the Spirit of God) in Acts 2, one using symbolic expression, is one of TOUCHING the head ( which would fit with sprinkling or affusion‑that is, pouring out). Notable also is this: that in Hebrews 9:10 the term 'baptisms' (translated 'washings'‑ but it is the Greek for baptisms) is a heading for a series which includes sprinkling (v.13), and that quite naturally, as this sprinkling is a normative purificatory mode.

In Romans 6 it is well to emphasise that the reference to burial in baptism is not only NON‑CEREMONIAL but theological, a matter of sanctification as already noted, in topic and theme, but is allied with being crucified and planted. As John Murray has pointed out, if we want to ignore metaphors here, we had better be crucified and so on, as well. Thus there is a double prohibition about the misuse of this text: it is on another topic entirely, and its abundant use of figures is neither a requirement nor a permission to start using one or more of them in a ceremony, a sacrament!

In terms of freedom of conscience, however, we do not exclude people with ANY variation; merely teach this, require such teaching in elders because it is clearly Biblical, but seek rather that each should be persuaded in his/her own mind (Romans 14:5). It is our desire that people may grow, and such topics as the mode of baptism do not convey an entry requirement for membership of the Church which is Christ's.

Nevertheless, we present these things clearly, as anything else in scripture, with the solemn witness that so it is found.

Two interesting and notable little works in this topic area are:

THE MEANING AND MODE OF BAPTISM Jay E.Adams (Pres.& Reformed Publ.Co.1975)

What Christian Parents should Know about INFANT BAPTISM, John P.Sartelle,

(Pres.& Reformed Publ.Co.1985),

while the inimitable Professor John Murray, long professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster Seminary gives the valuable:

CHRISTIAN BAPTISM ... (Pres. & Reformed Publ.Co., 1962).

All these books are comparatively small, Murray's alone being more challenging to the concentration, requiring perhaps more background.

Remember that baptism is a SIGN whereby God provides for believer and for believing parent a symbol: and this is like the imprint of majesty on a letter: WHATEVER you need in the covenantal condition of being bonded to the Lord, and serving Him with all your heart, is available; this is a ceremonial indication of what the promises specifically convey. God does not abrogate the nature of His image in man because of a ceremony, but neither does He withdraw the blessings on obedience and the public attestation that there is NO OTHER WAY for babe or boy, girl or matron, man or adolescent, none but this, and to one and to all it is imparted in any godly household: this is the clear intimation of the unchanging God, whose word stands as given on this topic.

You have pledged fealty, owned the honour and Lordship of Christ,
betokened your union with Him, your planting with Him, your purging by Him:
then whatever you need as parent, for example, you can seek with confidence. You have not used some
privately wrought substitute. NOTHING in your house is without the covenantal provision.

How clearly and often have I sought for my children when seeking to bring them up in a godly way, to the Lord (at 3 and 4 years of age, by his grace) and through the Lord to the will and wise ways of the Lord. As often as the problem has been given, the answer has come: in one case, the Lord even enabled us to gain from a Deputy Principal of a High School - after a time of persecution leading to this situation from

another place - the assurance that my son would NOT be taught evolution.

When the topic arose, the Deputy Principal had him moved to a special practical work prepared for him instead. And this ? It was in a government school, the private school of which the author had been principal, having failed in a breach of trust, to fulfil the understanding required for godly education. Even in persecution, the Lord supplied, and even for one so young, He acted, the covenantal God.

There is no rule about HOW the Lord will deliver and enable godly living; merely THAT... for has He not said:

GRACE AND PEACE BE MULTIPLIED TO YOU IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF JESUS OUR LORD,
AS HIS DIVINE POWER HAS GIVEN TO US
ALL THINGS THAT PERTAIN TO LIFE AND GODLINESS,
THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIM WHO HAS CALLED US TO GLORY AND VIRTUE,
BY WHICH WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN GREAT AND PRECIOUS PROMISES,
THAT THROUGH THESE YOU MAY BE PARTAKERS,
OF THE DIVINE NATURE HAVING ESCAPED THE CORRUPTION,
THAT IS IN THE WORLD THROUGH LUST ( II Peter 1:2‑4).

Another of the author's children was enabled to STAND and DECLARE and REASON and witness in this way when the challenge came: in either way, God is honoured and the children 'escaped' from the evil teaching, confirmed in godliness and walking with the Lord: and blessed be His name whose faithfulness is pure and proverbial, whose loyalty and trustworthiness is covenantally sure and steadfast (Isaiah 57:15,32:17,33:14‑19,32:2,5‑6). In the latter case, the lecturer was given to understand that if he took unattested theories and taught them against faith, my daughter would leave. He began then to abstain what after all, was a grossly improper educational practice.

A MINOR EXCURSION ON 'WORKS'

We have already, in the entire covenantal and faith structure of scripture, noticed a profound stress on GRACE, or unmerited favour. By grace you gain faith and are saved and have contact with God; in God you are stirred and animated and vitalised and directed, enveloped and commissioned, sealed and sent: in God's power, you are moved to your work for and in the Lord. Thus James says: FAITH WITHOUT WORKS IS DEAD (2:17). His wording precisely is:

"FAITH , IF IT HAS NO WORKS, IS DEAD, BEING ALONE"

What is dead does not, because it cannot act. 'Faith' then is a fiction, not a fact; involving pretence, not program. This sort of thing can happen in people who are stirred, but who do not surrender (cf. the parable of the seed and the sower ‑Mark 4:16‑17, where there was 'rejoicing' for a season, but then the seed of the word of God died in the soul concerned, since the heart stayed too heart EVER to receive it).

In such a case, a person may be influenced by the Gospel, attracted to it, but not in the end receive the Saviour. Such people may taste, but they do not swallow (cf. Hebrews 2:5), savour but not eat, watch the glass, but not swallow its contents ... Their hearts, as the parable shows, are not broken but remain underneath and underlying, hard like stone: they may be prepared to let Christ add to their joy ... or peace ... or program: but not for Him to salvage them as lost sinners, from their sin, reconstitute their personalities, cleanse their spirits and restore them to the fatherhood of God, not to a concept but to the LORD, who is Lord of all or not Lord at all (Luke 6:46, 14:27ff.)

Stony still, their hearts are not stirred to repentance. When they are, then, really tried out, like all fake or spurious things, they do not show the nature and nerve or verve or touch or character of what is authentic:

AFTERWARD WHEN TRIBULATION OR PERSECUTION ARISES
FOR THE WORD'S SAKE, IMMEDIATELY THEY STUMBLE ( Mark 4:17

Drifting off with this excuse or that, they become perfect targets for sin and doctrine to take them further astray than ever; and at times they collect other stray sheep and set off to the ravines. (Cf. Matthew 12:43‑45). But where a man is saved, and has come, then "BY GRACE ARE YOU SAVED THROUGH FAITH, AND THAT

( the whole thing ‑ grammatically required, the 'that' not agreeing in gender with 'faith') ... THAT

IS NOT OF YOURSELVES, IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD ( Ephesians 2:8).

Such a person, saved indeed, is then eternally alive; he lives, yet not he ‑ as Paul puts it in Galatians 2:20, but Christ lives in him, and the LIFE HE NOW LIVES IS BY THE FAITH OF THE SON OF GOD WHO LOVED HIM AND GAVE HIMSELF FOR HIM. Hence faith is alive, hence it works: hence it is not, in fact, where it applies at all, without works. Life does not make a phoney parade of death! If it is alive, it lives: it is as simple as that.

This test, the practical test of James is a spiritual one, and you see how it follows from the very nature of faith. This sort of faith cannot be unproductive, it cannot 'be alone' , because it is vitalised and prepared by God Himself. It is not alone, but IN GOD, whom nothing and no‑one can render inoperative. This attests, from one angle, the reality of the faith. It is one consequence of it. The 'works' of course are either spiritual or not spiritual, they either are in the Spirit and abound in the fruits of the Spirit ( Galatians 5:22‑24 lists many of these), or they do not.

These works are either under the guidance of the living God or they are not. They either flow from a saved creature's new life IN GOD, or they do not. They are either God‑sponsored or they are man‑sponsored (with worse sponsorship eagerly beyond or behind). Either they are God‑glorifying and centred or man- glorifying and sin centred. WORKS DO NOT SAVE: THEY CAN DAMN because they can mislead proud people into trusting in .themselves, and their own part, be it never so small, in the said works.

If the faith is in the Lord as Saviour, in God as truth, in the living God by the salvation He has provided, wrought in truth and accepted in reality, then it is HIS CALL and HIS WAY, and the works, with whatever growth and maturity refinements, follow. They do not lead; the fruit does not create the root: they follow, BECAUSE of the root in the reality of God as its ground. That is why trees not planted by “My heavenly Father,” as Christ declares, will be “uprooted” (Matthew 15:13).

Indeed, says Paul:

FOR BY GRACE YOU HAVE BEEN SAVED THROUGH FAITH,

AND THAT NOT OF YOURSELVES: IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD,

NOT OF WORKS LEST ANY MAN SHOULD BOAST.

FOR WE ARE HIS WORKMANSHIP (Ephesians 2:8‑9 bold added), and again

WHERE IS BOASTING THEN ? IT IS EXCLUDED (note).

BY WHAT LAW ? OF WORKS ?
NO, BUT BY THE LAW OF FAITH.

THEREFORE WE CONCLUDE THAT A MAN IS JUSTIFIED BY FAITH APART FROM THE DEEDS OF THE LAW ( Romans 3:27‑28).

Thus we see from these things that

some people can seem so busy and so keen, trying to JUSTIFY THEIR FAITH

(their SO‑CALLED 'faith', in fact, their
selftrust ... )

by their works, that they have forgotten to believe ... and thus, their 'faith' does not work. This is one of the many ironies which plague pretence and pretension!

Such people are busy bees without honey, activists without Christ.

Indeed, some people seem so keen on trying to 'succeed' that they appear
to forget or ignore what it is they are (supposedly or really ) succeeding at ...

After all, the devil succeeded... in getting to hell.

But as James says, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, this is a gift from God
(James 1;17‑18) and exhibits itself in fulfilment in what might be called its fruits.

You are saved without works,

but not without faith,

and faith works.

Paul slams self‑righteous efforts to save yourself by what you do,
self-effort at the work of salvation itself, rather than because it is already there;

James slams faith that is so ... only in name, bogus faith.

(See also SMR pp. 524-531.)

Paul shows what is accomplished for the sinner by the object of his faith,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who did the works of salvation
which He presents
(Romans 3:23,John 10:9,27‑28, Romans 5:15)
as a gift to sinners (Romans 6:23).

You enter the fold BY HIM as door and YOU WILL BE SAVED, as Jesus expressly said; and then, as His sheep YOU WILL BE KEPT, NOT PERISHING OR BEING SNATCHED OFF, as Jesus Christ also stated. It is necessary to BELIEVE HIM! That constitutes faith.

James acclaims (authentic, non‑bogus) faith, granted by grace as a "good and perfect gift" (James 1:17‑18) to the heart of the believer as an operative, now received into God's family, with the Lord.
USE IT.

Paul acclaims authentic God-given salvation. RECEIVE IT.

NOTE

A WORD on COVENANT, REST and COVERAGE

Deuteronomy 29:11-12 makes it clear that the wives and the little ones, ALL are to be gathered in the solemn covenantal assembly, before the Lord. NONE is irrelevant to the covenant, none is excluded, except by ONE ONLY exclusion, the case of an adult Who CAN understand, but EXPRESSLY lacking faith, blesses himself, or feels a foolish confidence that is NOT placed in the Lord through lack of faith (Deuteronomy 29:18ff.). To this secret unbeliever, there comes no blessing, but only shame.

The case is not different today (Hebrews 6, 10), where those who name the name of Christ, but in fact have not a hearing mixed with faith (Hebrews 4) do NOT enter into their rest, that continual quality and state of life which the Sabbath symbolised, which the Spirit conferred as He confers, which is the spiritual reality to which the Sabbath refers, typifies as the Lord’s Supper refers to (but does not at all constitute) the death of Christ and His coming again, and so resurrection. You do not eliminate the Lord’s Supper because its referent is alive. It is not fulfilled but symbolised what IS fulfilled. So with the Sabbath, now in terms of the Sunday of the resurrection, you do not eliminate it because Christ gives the rest God has always given (Psalm 116:5-13)

Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;

Yes, our God is merciful.

The Lord preserves the simple;

I was brought low, and He saved me.

“Return to your rest, O my soul,

For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

For You have delivered my soul from death,

My eyes from tears,

And my feet from falling.

I will walk before the Lord

In the land of the living.

I believed, therefore I spoke,

‘I am greatly afflicted.’

“I said in my haste,

‘All men are liars.’

What shall I render to the Lord

For all His benefits toward me?

I will take up the cup of salvation,

And call upon the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows to the Lord

Now in the presence of all His people.”

REST IN THE LORD has always been for His covenantal people, the acme of spirituality and the joy of His peace (Isaiah 63:14, Numbers 6:24-26). Christ epitomised this rest and gave its ground in redemption, long foreshadowed, and now performed; but the rest remained in its source, the Lord who was, and is, always the same (Psalm 37:1-7). When then does it say ? “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him,” and this, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He shall give you the desires of your heart” and again this, “RETURN to your rest.”

Rest in the Lord on the symbolical day of rest, was a RESULT of the CREATION MODE (Exodus 20) of your Creator, and THEREFORE commanded. The reality however was always there for His people.

Nor does ANY symbol convey salvation as just noted from Deuteronomy 29, and keenly shown in Isaiah 1. That is not the point (I Peter 3:21); sacramentalism is ALWAYS excluded, and irrelevant to the faith, whether with child or with adult. Rather is the issue the express acknowledgement of the Lord in ALL your ways, ALL your house, ALL your children, in covenantal terms as Colossians 2:11-12 makes explicit, and without it in any case, all the scripture makes mandatory.

The content of the covenants is basically the same, since Christ, the bloom covers the bud, and the Lord is the same, and His will concerning families in general, marriage, divorce, covenantal application of the seal of the covenant concerned, it is the same, and so all the children are gathered, even the little ones in Deuteronomy 29’s prescription, FOR THE PURPOSE OF ASSIGNING the COVENANT, not some, not older, all, just as ALL males were to be circumcised on the eighth day. When it may be found that the Lord changes, blasphemy unspeakable (Hebrews 13:8, Malachi 3:6), or that His commands and principles may be DISMISSED without HIS SAYING SO, then we are moving into a man-made covenant.

Avoid this presumption as you avoid any other addition
to the word, work or will of the Lord, all teaching that is not in His word.

	There is no (scriptural) future in doing what Romanism does,
	making the sacrament self-important,
	rather than Christ without whom it has no meaning,
	and in whom It cannot be realised in its significance except when faith comes.