What Does Baptism Accomplish? Part Two: Adoption Ceremony
When God enters into covenant with His people, there is always an adoptive element involved: He becomes their Father, and they become His children. And this has always been the case. In Scripture, even Adam’s relationship with God is expressed in terms of sonship (Hosea 6:7; Luke 3:38), highlighting the filial dimension to the covenant into which he was created. Later, after his Fall and recovery by God in Christ, that relationship was available to those who renewed their covenant with God and maintained the true worship of the Lord (Genesis 4:26). They were called sons and daughters of God, while the rest of the world were called the sons and daughters of men (Genesis 6:2).
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Children, Obey Your Parents
“Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” ~Colossians 3:2Every several years, new approaches to parenting are presented by the experts. (I often wonder how many children these experts have reared successfully.) Over the past several years, “gentle parenting” has been the latest experiment in child-rearing. Obedience is not demanded from the parent. Punishments and rewards are discouraged as incentives. Instead, the parent is to empathize with and validate a child’s feelings. The parent negotiates with the child, trying to convince the child to do what he thinks the child ought to do. Instead of expecting immediate obedience and emotional control, the child must come to a place of self-awareness. Gentle-parenters will probably be outraged by my lack of nuance. I’ve seen their children. The proof is in the pudding. Gentle parenting techniques don’t produce obedient children. They produce children who are self-consumed, discontent, emotionally fragile, and unhappy. Abigail Shier, in her book Bad Therapy: Why The Kids Aren’t Growing Up, rightly judges gentle parenting as “child abuse.”
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An Exhortation for a Classical School
By Pastor Brooks Potteiger
Pastor Brooks Potteiger is an ordained minister in the CREC. He has also received Master’s degrees in Christian Apologetics and Pastoral Care and Counseling . He enjoys live-edge woodworking, photography, the poetry of George Herbert, the sturdy theology of the Puritans, the creative destruction of a chainsaw, and the convulsive belly laughs that accompany G.K. Chesterton amongst friends.
12 And Isaac sowed in that land (that is Gerar) and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him, 13 and the man became rich, and gained more and more until he became very wealthy. 14 He had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants, so that the Philistines envied him. 15 (Now the Philistines had stopped and filled with earth all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father.) 16 And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.”
17 So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there. 18 And Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of Abraham his father, which the Philistines had stopped after the death of Abraham. And he gave them the names that his father had given them. 19 But when Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of spring water, 20 the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” So he called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with him. 21 Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that also, so he called its name Sitnah. 22 And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Rehoboth, saying, “For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.”
23 From there he went up to Beersheba. 24 And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham’s sake.” 25 So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac’s servants dug a well….
32 That same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well that they had dug and said to him, “We have found water.” (Genesis 26:12-25; 32)
How do the sojournings of a patriarch from 4,000 years past relate to the encouragement of Christian educators? Why choose Genesis 26 as the concrete slab to build such an exhortation?
My defense for doing so is two-fold: Firstly, I have to admit I have been preaching through Genesis for a few years at church so I oft have Genesis on my mind. Secondly, as I consider our current cultural moment and your task as Classical Christian educators I find much common ground with you and Isaac’s situation.
Allow me to make a few parallels to explain. Beginning in verse 12 we learn that Isaac was tremendously blessed of God. He was astonishingly rich and as Americans in 2024 so are we. We have been trusted with a great inheritance and an embarrassment of riches both physically and spiritually. We can acquire food and medicine easily and access immediate information about anything at the tip of our fingers. If you hit a snag on any project you have YouTube to pull up a personal mentor who will walk your through each step to completion.
We have immediate access to, not just information, but literally anything, thanks to Amazon Prime. If any other person at any other point in human history saw us use this portal to the world’s goods, they would think we were practicing wizardry. Ponder this for a moment: if we want something we pull a magic wand out of our pocket, tap a button and it just appears on our front porch that same day, which is simply incredible.
So I go back to where I started. Like Isaac, we’ve been blessed with riches.
Andwe are not just physically rich, but we are rich spiritually as well. We have received a startling inheritance Even amidst the present onslaught of secularism in our day, we are still free to worship the Triune God on the Lord’s Day in broad daylight, through a live microphone and without fear. The currency we print in our country still reads, “in God we trust,” and our forefathers didn’t mean some vague sky-fairy by that; they meant the God of the Bible. In courtrooms throughout this land we still swear on the Bible and many judges still actually think that means something.
Here in Tennessee we are especially blessed by the recent actions of our legislature who enacted Resolution 803, which was a call to consecrate July as a time for prayer, repentance, and intermittent fasting. Consider this excerpt from the Resolution:
BE IT RESOLVED, that we recognize that God, as Creator and King of all Glory, has both the authority to judge and to bless nations or states.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we recognize our sins and shortcomings before Him and humbly ask His Forgiveness.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we ask the Lord Jesus to heal our land and remove the violence, human-trafficking, addiction, and corruption.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we ask that the Holy Spirit fill our halls of government, our classrooms, our places of business, our churches, and our homes with peace, love, and joy.
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What Does Baptism Accomplish? Part One: Introduction
One of the questions often posed about the sacrament of Holy Baptism is: What does it actually accomplish? The answer in its most basic form is that Baptism initiates a covenant relationship with the Triune God and with each of the three Persons in particular.
In this series, I will develop this answer in some detail, but first it may be helpful to give a brief explanation and defense of its several parts.
Baptism Initiates a Covenant Relationship
Some have argued that “initiate” is too strong of a word since baptism, like circumcision, merely “acknowledges” a child’s existing covenant relationship with God, provided that he was born to at least one believing parent (1 Corinthians 7:14). Indeed, such an argument is not altogether wrong, as the LORD states that a child not circumcised on the eighth day would be “cut off from his people” for having “broken My covenant” (Genesis 17:12-14). From this passage, it is evident that every Israelite boy had a legitimate covenant status prior to his circumcision. Otherwise, how could he have broken the covenant? Or what does it mean that he is to be cut off from God’s people?
At the same time, however, we need to understand that this pre-circumcision covenant status was provisional. To use an analogy, it is like a temporary paper driver’s license issued to a new driver until the official one arrives. The paper license is real but is intended for limited and temporary use, and therefore bears the disclaimer: Not a Valid Form of ID. While imperfect, this analogy suffices. The thrust of Genesis 17:12-14 is that when the circumcision of an Israelite boy was refused or neglected by the father, the provisional covenant status of the child expired on the eighth day. Thus, the lack of circumcision annulled the status that the child enjoyed for the first eight days of his life. At minimum, this implies that birth alone—like the paper license—was not a valid form of Covenant ID in Israel.
In the same way, we might assert that any child born today to at least one believing parent has an interest in the covenant by virtue of his birth. In this sense, his covenant status is assumed but still pending. The child is holy, but with a provisional holiness (1 Corinthians 7:14). Thus, it is only when he is baptized that he enters into the church and is cleared and confirmed as a member of the body of Christ. Being baptized, his provisional covenant status is both formalized and secured.
However, while such an objection may be valid, it is nevertheless limited since it only applies to covenant children who are born within the church and fails to account for the men, women, and children who come in from the outside. For those who come from the outside have no covenant status to formalize or secure. In their case, baptism serves to confer that status for the very first time, as it unites them to Jesus Christ, brings them into the new covenant community, and incorporates them into the life of church: “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13; cf. Acts 2:41).
Therefore, there is nothing improper in saying that baptism initiates a covenant relationship with the Triune God.
A Relationship with the Triune God
Of all the aspects of the answer provided, this is perhaps the easiest to understand. When a person is baptized, he is always baptized into the name of the Triune God. Jesus commanded the apostles to use the Trinitarian formula for Christian baptism, thus, employing a different form invalidates the rite. Unless we are baptized “into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19-20), we are not baptized at all. This command has been faithfully followed by the church for nearly 2,000 years.
Unfortunately, many today question the necessity of using the Trinitarian formula, citing instances in Scripture where the apostles baptized people “in the name of Jesus” (Acts 10:48). To clarify this point, we must understand the flexibility of the term “name” (Greek: onoma). At times, it refers to a person’s reputation, as seen in Revelation 3:1: “You have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.” At other times, it denotes a person’s authority, as when Paul said to the unclean spirit: “I command you in the Name of Jesus Christ to come out of her” (Acts 16:18). In this latter sense, the apostles baptized in Jesus’ name—they acted under His authority, as His appointed representatives.
Moreover, the term “name” is used in Scripture to denote the person himself. This is evident in the Lord’s response to Moses when he asked to see the Lord’s glory (Exodus 33:18). The Lord replied, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the Name of the Lord before you” (Exodus 33:19). Subsequently, as He passed by Moses, He proclaimed His “name” by listing a number of the communicable attributes of His own nature—specifically His mercy, grace, patience, goodness, truth, and justice (Exodus 34:6-7). From this, it becomes clear that God’s Name refers to God Himself, so that to be baptized into the Name of the Triune God is to be baptized into Him. Through baptism, we are united to God in Christ, made “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4) and beneficiaries of His richest covenant blessings.
Nevertheless, as previously noted, the church remains committed to baptizing in the authority of Jesus Christ, who commissioned His disciples to baptize “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” This practice is essential to uphold.
With Each Person of the Trinity
Here we transition from the “one” to the “many” and return to where we began. God is indeed one, yet He is one in three Persons. Therefore, while baptism initiates a covenant relationship with the Triune God, there are necessarily three distinct aspects to that relationship, each corresponding to one of the three Persons of the Trinity. As it pertains to the Father, the relationship is adoptive; as it pertains to the Son, it is marital; and as it pertains to the Holy Spirit, it is ministerial. Thus, baptism (serving simultaneously as an adoption, marriage, and ordination ceremony) at once incorporates the baptized person into the family of God, the bride of Christ, and the universal priesthood of the Christian church.
In the following three installments, I will take up and defend these propositions in turn, beginning with the assertion that Christian baptism is an adoption ceremony. This foundational aspect not only underscores our identity in Christ but also invites us into the profound and transformative relationship that God extends to each of His covenant children.
“Shepherds for Sale” Turns up the Heat on Gavin Ortlund
Chase Davis is the Lead Pastor of Ministry of The Well Church in Boulder, CO. A two-time graduate of Denver Seminary (M.Div., Th.M.), Chase is also a Ph.D. candidate at the Free University Amsterdam studying historical theology. He is the author of Trinitarian Formation: A Theology of Discipleship in Light of the Father, Son, and Spirit and hosts the Full Proof Theology podcast.
Much Like Climate Alarmism, The Charges of “Misrepresentation” in Megan’s Book Are a Hoax
Gavin Ortlund has made a name for himself as a YouTube apologist. As the son of Ray Ortlund Jr., a “respected” voice in the Young, Restless, and Reformed (YRR) movement, and grandson of Ray Ortlund Sr., a pastor and Christian radio program host, Gavin follows in the tradition of his fathers by pursuing a career of being a big-time Christian communicator to the next generation. As the author of several books, he, too, has now established himself as a “respected” voice for many mainstream evangelicals.
While Gavin is staking out his own claim on the YouTube silver screen, he is also undeniably positioned within the broader ecosystem of what some call “Big Evangelicalism” or “Big Eva” for short.
Along with trading on his family name, he is a beneficiary of a family-created position as the theologian-in-residence at the non-denominational “gospel-centered” Immanuel Nashville, serving alongside his father. Also on staff with Gavin is the former head of the ERLC and current Editor-in-Chief of Christianity Today, Russell Moore, and Associate Pastor Sam Alberry, famous for his quibbling on matters related to human sexuality, and Assistant Pastor Barnabas Piper (himself a fellow progeny of a patron saint of the Young Restless Reformed, John Piper). To top it all off, he is a fellow at The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics, a program started by The Gospel Coalition where the Lead Pastor of Immanuel Nashville, T.J. Sims, serves as a Council Member.
When it comes to his name and his elite evangelical pedigree, Gavin is a true blue blood. Perhaps that’s why he thinks he is above being questioned by scrappy reporters exposing a dark underbelly to Big Eva.
Names and Pedigrees Won’t Save You from Being Exposed in Shepherds for Sale
This week, Gavin found himself in hot water as an illustrative figure in the first chapter of Megan Basham’s blockbuster book Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda, which sits in the top 20 of all books available on Amazon at the time of this article. It should be no surprise that men like Ortlund would be a person of interest in Basham’s work. Basham’s book covers the gamut of Leftist ideologies and infiltration in the evangelical church in America. With the eye of an investigative journalist, she details how various figures and entities in evangelicalism have knowingly or unknowingly adopted Leftist frameworks either by taking money or by parroting leftist slogans.
Her thesis is that evangelical pastors and speakers with large platforms are attempting to convince their followers of certain policies associated with the Left because they are being influenced wittingly or unwittingly by outside entities. These pastors and speakers are caught up in the propagandist nature of our day because there are certain incentive structures created to be a “good boy.”
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Twelve: Old and New Connecting the New and Old Testament Foundations
Guest Post By Pastor Josh Waller
Joshua Waller is the pastor of Christ the King Presbyterian Church (CREC) in Tallahassee, FL. He is married to Rebecca and has four wonderful daughters.
‘During Jesus’ ministry, he was laying the church’s foundation. The apostles are included in this work, as Christ is the chief cornerstone and Peter, James, and John, his inner circle, should be considered the other cornerstones. As with many images, there is more than one way to describe what occurs. For example, Jesus’ body is the temple, but the Spirit also grafts us into Christ as the temple. We should be able to see Jesus himself as the temple and the church, the body of Christ, as the temple at the same time. Ephesians 2:20 refers to the foundation laid as “the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone” and I Peter 2:5 says that “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.”
A word on architecture. A chief cornerstone is the first stone laid and the one around which the rest are laid. The other stones are laid according to the chief cornerstone. You must lay that one stone first and work out from there because otherwise, the structure would not end up straight or sound.
Jesus chose twelve disciples because it represents the new Israel, to be sure, but twelve is a significant number in terms of foundation-building, as well. A twelve-stone foundation would be a 3×4 structure and 3+4=7, which signifies the completed project. Now, this has implications for the miraculous gifts, but that is not the purpose of this article.
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