Hebrews 8-9; Genesis 17:9-14; Colossians 2:11
AI-GENERATED SUMMARY
Pastor Tuuri defends the church’s confessional statement regarding the two sacraments, arguing that both baptism and communion should be administered to believers and their households, including children. He builds his case on the continuity of the covenant, asserting that just as infants were included in the Old Covenant rites (circumcision and Passover), the New Covenant—which is an expansion, not a restriction—includes them in its signs (baptism and the Lord’s Supper). He posits that both the continuity and the discontinuity (expansion) of the covenants serve as the basis for household participation. The sermon addresses objections regarding the mode of baptism and the ability of children to examine themselves, ultimately exhorting parents to treat these signs not as empty rituals but as authentic seals of God’s ownership.
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
We continue this morning with a series of talks relative to the covenant of Reformation Covenant Church and the confession statement. We’re going to be spending most of the next probably three or four or more months even talking about the covenant side of that document. We’re continuing this morning and actually completing this morning the section of the covenant that lists a series of statements of belief or doctrines this church holds.
We thought it’d be good prefacing the covenant side of that covenant statement to talk a little bit about the confessional differences of Reformation Covenant churches opposed to churches that we’ve come out of or other churches that we may be familiar with. Some of the distinctives I guess is what we’re talking about here this morning. We’re dealing with the last three points of the confessional state of Reformation Covenant statement rather for the church.
Those points are these. We believe that God has given two signs and seals of his covenant. These being baptism and communion. We believe that all professors of faith in Jesus Christ and their children are entitled to the waters of baptism and under obligation to enter therein. We believe that all baptized professors of faith in Jesus Christ and their baptized children are invited by Christ to partake of his supper. However, those who show that they are covenant despisers or blasphemous rejectors of God and his law are to be barred from the table.
Most of these statements really, as we said before and we talked about the sovereignty of God in election, the sovereignty of God in sanctification or theonomic, God’s abiding law for us, and the sovereignty of God in history or positive view toward the history of what God will accomplish. We said then that most of these things aren’t really new and novel with today’s church. And really, most of the statements that we’ve just read aren’t particularly new or novel either. They’re very established in the reformed tradition and before that in the tradition of the early church, spanning for the last 2,000 years. So it’s important to recognize at the outset of this conversation, this talk about these particular points, these things aren’t new and novel and shouldn’t shock us in any way.
It’s important too to recognize something that we haven’t really brought out over the last talks on the sovereignty of God in those various areas we talked about and we’ve made reference to it now and then, but now we come to a discussion of the covenant of God and the signs and seals of that covenant. It’s important in going into it to remember that the things we’ve talked about in the last few weeks, salvation, God’s law, the history of what we see in history and the future, these things are all covenant facts.
Salvation, as we tried to point out, is a covenant reality. We have salvation in Jesus Christ because he is our covenant mediator. He took upon himself the curses of the covenant of those people who are covenant breakers, us. We have covenant peace with God through his covenant obedience. Salvation is a covenant fact. In fact, we talked about the abiding validity of God’s law. God’s law isn’t isolated from the covenant. It’s seen as telling us what that covenant’s all about. The terms of that covenant, the terms for our sanctification and our evidence of true salvation. God’s law is a covenant fact.
And last week when we talked about history, what we tried to play out not directly necessarily, but we say it directly now is that history is covenant history. It’s the history of God’s dealing with the world in covenant relationship and bringing the whole world to salvation through the process of historical development, the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s covenant history. When we look at history, when we look at eschatology, we have to see it in light of the covenant and what that covenant of God is intended to accomplish throughout the span of history.
And we tried to point out last week that the importance of recognizing the covenant in all this is that Jesus Christ came as the covenant mediator 2,000 years ago and paid the price and was resurrected for our justification. And so it’s that event of Jesus Christ whereby God accomplished salvation for his covenant people. It’s important to recognize the power then that’s accomplished in the coming of the covenant keeper. And it’s that power and that activity that Jesus Christ performed 2,000 years ago that is the basis for our optimism as we look toward the future. It’s not a belief in the goodness of man nor in the efficacy necessarily of the church as being eloquent speakers or something. No, we see Jesus Christ came once for all and accomplished covenant peace.
On the basis of that, the preaching of the covenant of the unconditional surrender required to that covenant and of Christ taking our place as the covenant keeper. It’s that preaching that will accomplish over the span of history a converted world. And we looked at some verses that talked about how Jesus came to save the world and to pay the price for the sins of the world to make propitiation for the sins of the world. It’s important to recognize that some of those verses are used to teach limited atonement. But if you’re going to use those verses to teach limited atonement, you also have to use those same set of verses to teach the limiting rather—I’m sorry. If you’re going to use those things to speak of unlimited atonement, which is what they would use the verses for, you also have to use those same verses to speak of unlimited salvation.
Because in the same way it says that Christ made propitiation for the sins of the world, it also says that Christ came to save the world. To be consistent, you have to see both activities correspondingly. But anyway, the point of all that was is that the history of the world is the history of God’s covenant relationship with his people. And that God promises us that Jesus Christ has intervened once for all in the affairs of the world and accomplished salvation for the whole world. And that’s being brought about now by the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
All that by way of introduction to speak that today to say that today we want to talk about the covenant signs and seals. I’ll give three points basically. The first point I’ll be making is that the continuity of the covenants is a basis for household baptism and household communion.
Second point is that the discontinuity of the covenant is also a basis for household baptism and household communion. Quote: the continuity and discontinuity of the testaments or of the covenant are bases for household baptism and communion.
The third point will deal with some of the objections made in reference to the mode of one of the two signs and seals because that deserves some time. So that’ll be our third point and then we’ll conclude with a series of hopefully exhortive statements applying what we look at in terms of understanding the sacraments that God has given us—the signs and seals of the covenant being based upon the continuity of the testaments.
**FIRST POINT: THE CONTINUITY OF THE COVENANTS**
First of all, the continuity of the covenants is a basis for household baptism and communion. Well, in order to say that, the first thing we have to demonstrate is that there is continuity of the covenants. If you don’t have continuity, then the statement is worthless.
Well, I think that there’s a lot of ways to go about this and we’re going to look briefly at some verses this morning, but it’s important to recognize as we read Hebrews 9 and portions of Hebrews 8 that the entire book of Hebrews teaches—and particularly the passages we read—that the new covenant in Jesus Christ is not discontinuous with the old covenant. There are aspects in which it is, but the primary thing he’s saying is: here’s what happened under the old covenant and here’s what those things were talking about. Here’s the promises of the old covenant and here’s the fulfillment in Jesus Christ. You see, one leads to the other. He’s building a theology of Jesus Christ and his finished work and what he’s accomplished once for all based upon the old covenant.
See, he couldn’t do that if the covenants were discontinuous, if you had a whole new thing happening now with the coming of Jesus Christ, he wouldn’t do that. He’d say these things were just out to lunch, forget them. He doesn’t do that. He says that the blood of bulls and goats, the sprinkling, the tabernacle, all those things pointed to the fulfillment of that covenant—that covenant in Jesus Christ, the covenant keeper. Hebrews bases the new covenant fulfillment in Jesus Christ upon the old covenant and so demonstrates covenant continuity.
This is particularly seen in verse 10. Very important verse. He’s been talking about the sacraments as it were, the means of grace as it were, of the old covenant and the various things the priest would do and the temple stood for and all these things. And what he says in verse 10 is: “These things stood which stood only in meats and drinks and diverse washings and carnal ordinances.”
Now, the carnal ordinances really is saying that the meats and drinks and the diverse washings are part of—are the two things that were occurring under the old covenant, which were carnal ordinances, things that happened in the flesh. Okay? So there’s what he’s saying here is that all the old covenant signs and seals that prefigured Jesus Christ can be classified under two groups: food and drink and washings. And those were the Old Testament sacraments. Now, that’s important to see covenant continuity there because we know—we’ll look at some other verses here in a little bit—but everybody would agree that the two things they would call them either ordinances or sacraments of the new covenant are two things: meat and drinks and washings—communion and baptism. So there’s continuity shown there actually in the sacraments themselves.
We’ll go back to that word by the way, for washings there, in a little bit, a little later when we talk about objections to mode. But for now, it’s important to recognize that it’s speaking of the unity of the covenants here.
Now, I wanted to just bring up another point here. We all know that basically what the scriptures teach us—and we’ll talk about this a little later again—but it’s important to bring it up now for a particular reason: that baptism is the New Testament equivalent of circumcision and that communion is the New Testament equivalent of Passover. Okay, we’ll be looking at some verses along that line later, but it’s important to recognize that those weren’t the only sacraments of the Old Covenant. And if we say that the old covenant sacrifice sacraments were classified under food and drink and washings, what do you do with circumcision?
Well, I think it can be demonstrated from a lot of ways. We’ll just look at two verses quickly here now to demonstrate that circumcision was a cleansing ordinance, a washing sort of ordinance. It was cleansing. I suppose the better way to say is that you have two sacraments in the old covenant. You had cleansings and you had nourishment sacraments. Okay? Washings and food and drink.
In Leviticus 19:23, he’s given instructions when they go into the land. He says that when you go in, you shall count the fruit thereof as uncircumcised. Three years shall it be as uncircumcised unto you. It shall not be eaten of. He’s saying the fruit—that’s what we could talk about the presupposition involved there—by the way, the fruit necessarily wasn’t unclean. He said to count it as unclean, uncircumcised rather. And that obviously means in the context that it wasn’t to be clean for them. That’s the distinction that God puts upon food—is clean and unclean. So he’s saying that food for three years will be unclean. And what’s the term he used? Uncircumcised. Uncircumcised food is unclean food, because there’s a relationship between circumcision and cleansing.
In Isaiah 52:1, there’s a direct correlation of the two. He says, “Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion. Put on thy beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the holy city. For henceforth there shall no more come into thee, the uncircumcised and the unclean.” He’s categorizing those people as being unclean and uncircumcised. There’s a correlation between being uncircumcised and unclean, just as it was with the food before. So there is with the nations as well. The uncircumcised people were the unclean people. So circumcision has its place under these two groupings of the Old Testament sacraments because it is a sign of cleansing and a seal of cleansing.
The Westminster Confession rather talks about this relationship of the old and new covenants and the sacraments of them in chapter 7. And I’ll read from that chapter 7 of God’s covenant with man, sections five and six.
“This covenant was differently administered in the time of the law and in the time of the gospel. Under the law it was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb and other types ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews. All for signifying Christ to come which were for that time sufficient and efficacious through the operation of the spirit to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised messiah by whom they had full remission of sins and eternal salvation and is called the old testament. Section six: under the gospel when Christ the substance was exhibited the ordinances in which this covenant is dispensed are the preaching of the word the administration of the sacraments of baptism in the Lord’s supper which though fewer in number and administered with more simplicity and less outward glory Yet in them it is held forth in more fullness evidence and spiritual efficacy to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles, and is called the New Testament. There are not therefore two covenants of grace differing in substance, but one and the same under various dispensations.”
What the confession is saying, and what is clearly pointed out in the verses we just read from Hebrews 9, is that the old covenant was administered under various signs and seals, sacraments, and there were many of them—a whole multiplicity of things you had to eat and washings you had to go through. A lot of them. In the new covenant distilled down to two sacraments and the other means of grace of course is the preaching of the word. But the two sacraments are baptism—the cleansing sacrament of the New Testament—and communion—the nourishment sacrament of the New Testament.
We talked last week about Ephesians 2:11 and 12. I’ll read them again. “Wherefore remember important now that you being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision, by that which is called the circumcision, in the flesh made by hands, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”
He said there that we were alienated from the covenants of promise—plural, word covenants. And you can do a study on the various covenants of the Old Testament: the Noahic covenant, Abrahamic covenant, Davidic covenant or other covenants. But what he’s saying is here they were the covenants of promise. They were one covenant under various administrations and we were alienated from those covenants of promise of the Old Testament which is one covenant of promise basically. And now he says you’ve been brought by the blood of Jesus Christ. This is one of the strongest verses of the New Testament to demonstrate covenant continuity between Israel and the church. It’s the same covenant. And he says, “Now we’re brought into that covenant.”
In Romans 11:4, he gives us an object lesson to teach us about the engrafting. He says, “Boast not against the branches, but if thou boast, thou beest not the root, but the root thee. Thou will say that the branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.” And he says, “That’s right.” He’s using the illustration of a plant. He’s saying that the branches were broken off through unbelief—the Israelites—and you are grafted in. We’re not created a new plant here. He’s given us an object lesson to remind us that it’s one covenant community, the roots of which are the covenant mediator, Jesus Christ. He’s stressing continuity here. He’s saying we’ve been placed into that covenant, grafted in.
And in Colossians 2, he says that we’re circumcised—which was obviously God said, “This is my covenant circumcision.” Colossians 2:11-13: “In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, and putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism. Wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God with raised from the dead. And ye being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.”
What he’s saying is that you people now that he’s writing to—Christians, new covenant people—you are now circumcised. Now, what else could he be saying except that you’re put into that same covenant that was administered under the various signs and seals of the old covenant. It’s the same covenant here under various administrations. These verses clearly teach the continuity of the covenants of promise and of our—that is, the New Testament church’s—inclusion into the covenant community. So there is definitely continuity between the covenants.
Well, then in order to say that continuity between the covenants is a basis for our practice today of household baptisms and household communion, we have to see those things in the Old Covenant, don’t we? And if we see them in the Old Covenant, we have ample reason to suspect they’ll be there in the new covenant. So let’s go to the Old Testament.
**HOUSEHOLD ADMINISTRATION IN THE OLD COVENANT**
Now, the ordinances of cleansing begins with, of course, circumcision. That is the primary one that is referenced in the scriptures as the sign and seal of covenant inclusion into the covenant community. The sign rather of inclusion. And in Genesis 17:9-14, we read, of course, as most of us are already aware, that Abraham was commanded to circumcise his household, not just his children, but his household.
And he says, “This is my covenant that you circumcise every child that is eight days old, that you circumcise the members of your household.” He’s saying that my covenant is household circumcision. Household cleansing, household initiation into the covenant, not individualistic. Okay? He’s saying the family is the basis of the covenant here.
Now, another short digression here. He says this is my covenant. He doesn’t say this stands for my covenant or this, you know, should remind you—like he says this is my covenant. Now, it’s important to recognize—and again this will be repeating for a lot of you—but it’s important to recognize: What are signs and seals? Just real briefly, a sign and a seal is something first of all that signs the covenant. It demonstrates it. It shows it. And it seals it. It has the authenticity of God stamped on the relationship through the administration of the seal.
Now there are those people that call themselves Christians who have taken the idea of signs and seals and there are two various errors that can be accomplished in terms of what these signs and seals are. On the one hand, you could take an overly individualistic perspective—or realistic perspective—and say that the sign itself is what’s important. It has the substance of things. Okay? And if you have the sign of circumcision, why, you’re part of the covenant. That’s it. You’re saved. You’re going to heaven. And if you’ve been baptized, you’re part of the church. And you may have to spend a lot of time in purgatory, but that’s where you’re going to heaven. And if you take communion, you’ve really been nourished regardless of your attitude. Okay, that’s one error.
The other error is to say that well after all they’re just ordinances. They’re not really important. If we do them, it’d be good to think through what they’re saying to us, but they’re not really important in terms of a seal. They do sign things, but they don’t seal things. And so they say that it’s not important whether or not you have baptism or communion. In this side of the coin, the obviously in this side where the Roman Catholic Church has taken that extreme. On this side of the coin, various churches, particularly the Quakers, would be a good example of taking this extreme and gotten rid of communion and baptism altogether.
What do the scriptures say? The scriptures say that both things are important. The reality that’s being signed and sealed and the sign and the seal itself. Now, it’s based upon an understanding that God is both one and many. We don’t want to get off into that, but it’s important to recognize the commands of God tell us both things are important. There are clear verses like the one we just read that says the sign is important and if you don’t have that sign administered to your children, they’re cut off from the covenant community. I don’t care how much they believe. He says if they haven’t acted in obedience and given them that sign and seal, they’re cut off. That would be considered as outside the covenant community.
Conversely, we know that Paul said that circumcision avails nothing. The Scriptures say that both the substance—the attitude of the person involved, the obedience of the person involved—be a better way to put it. His understanding of the covenant, his obligations to act in obedience to the terms of it, that’s important. And the sign of the seal is important. They’re equally important here.
Now, the term sign and seal, in case you think it’s some kind of extrabiblical term, it’s not. In Romans 4:11, we read of Abraham: “And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith, which he had, yet being uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised, that righteousness might be imputed unto them also.”
So we see from that verse that there are signs and seals, and we just explained what that means. It’s important to recognize though that both things are equally important to God and both of them should be acted in obedience on.
Now, that verse also of course tells us a lot about the signs and seals of the old covenant, doesn’t it? What were they signing and sealing? Oh, justification by faith. But I thought the old covenant was different somehow than people were saved by works. Well, not if you believe the scriptures. And as we pointed out in Galatians 3, the law was added because of transgressions, but it didn’t set aside the covenant. It explained the covenant. Continuity is stressed again there.
Circumcision was definitely household circumcision in the old covenant. You can see many examples of that.
Now, before we leave circumcision and go to Passover, we said that circumcision is one of the washing or cleansing ordinances of the old covenant. And there were others, of course. And just briefly, we’re told specifically by God in the New Testament that the nation of Israel was baptized as it went through the Red Sea. Okay. Well, when they passed through the Red Sea, when God parted the Red Sea, who walked through there? They didn’t airlift the kids over. You know, the kids walked through with them. And so if the nation of Israel was baptized, that means the children that were walking with them and being carried with by them were also baptized.
So in that washing that’s of the Old Testament that’s talked about there, we see households involved as well. In Hebrews it talks about the various sprinklings and goes on to say later about the sprinkling of the blood—goats blood and blood of calves and goats rather. And we know we’ve talked in the past about when the covenant was ratified, that they took the blood, they put it in bowls, they sprinkled both the book and the people. And Hebrews talks about this in Hebrews 9:19. They sprinkled both the book of the covenant, they sprinkled the altar and they sprinkled the people with the blood. That’s one of those Old Testament washings that’s being talked about in Hebrews 9—of which baptism is a funneling down of in terms of distilling out the essence. That’s one of the Old Testament washings.
How is it administered? Again, there he didn’t go around and just to the individual men and women, the older ones who could understand, sprinkle them. No, no, he sprinkled households. He sprinkled all of them. And so we see that the Old Testament cleansing ordinances, primarily in circumcision and then also in the other Old Testament washings, were all administered to households. No doubt about it.
But what about the ordinances of nourishment, food and drink? Well, of course, we know there again that Passover is the primary one that’s talked about in terms of communion because after all, communion was a Passover dinner. Christ said that he was the Paschal lamb. And so that’s the primary one. And we’ll spend a little bit of time talking about that.
In Exodus 12:1-4, there’s some important considerations here. Very few people argue the fact that circumcision in the Old Testament was household. There are people though who do espouse in the reformed tradition that in Exodus 12, we don’t see necessarily the inclusion of small children. I think they’re wrong. And here’s why I think they’re wrong.
In Exodus 12, verses 3 and 4 rather, speaking unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, “In the tenth day of this month, they shall take to them every man a lamb according to the house of their father. A lamb for an house. And if the house will be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house, take it according to the number of the souls. Every man according to his eating shall make your account for the lamb.”
He says that when you—if your household is small, you put together two households and you have a lamb according to the number of your souls. The word there for souls is nephesh. It means anything with life or vitality. Children are living souls. And if you believe with the covenant statement of this church, they’re living souls from the point of conception on, not even from the time of birth on. So living souls is to be how they were numbered for the administration of the paschal lamb. That means that every child regardless of age was to be counted as it were and included in that meal in the preparation for the lamb.
Furthermore, in verse 24, we read, “And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons forever.” Now, it’s important also to recognize there this—the first Passover was their meal for the evening. And it would be unthinkable to exclude children who are hungry, small children who were hungry and could eat the food. It would be foolish to think that they were somehow excluded from that partaking. And of course, we see there the number of the souls. And we in verse 24 we just read that it shall be an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever. And the word for son there is most—the widest term possibly used. Ben means everybody. There’s no distinction on age put upon the word son there. That’s real obvious.
But in Leviticus 12:6, just in case you’re wondering, the same word is used for son. And it’s talking about the days of the purifying for the woman who has given birth. And it talks about how many for a son and how many for a daughter. And so we see there that sons in that context meant eight-day-old infants, little tiny infants. And that’s who the ordinance is for—is for you and for your sons and they’re for your children.
Now another objection we have to answer at this point in time is that it says in the text, later on in that description of the first Passover it says this: Exodus 12:25-26, “It shall come to pass when you have come to the land which the Lord will give you according as he hath promised that you shall keep this service and it shall come to pass when your children shall say unto you what mean ye by this service that you shall say it is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover on and on—explain it.”
Some reformed people have said that since it says here that when your child asks you, explain it to them, they have somehow—I don’t think fabricate is too strong a word—fabricated a formal ritual being developed here in which the son, and as the present day Jewish community would use, the youngest son, he asked the question and until he asked the question he can’t partake of the dinner. Okay? That’s one line of reasoning you’ll hear from people who object to household Passover in the Old Testament.
Well, it’s simply adding to the text. There’s nothing in the scriptures that indicates that there’s some sort of confirmatory rite through which people pass to attain adulthood. Growth as a child is just like growth anybody else. It’s a long slow process of maturation in the faith and obedience and also of course an intellectual understanding and experiencing the truth of God. But primarily seen in terms of obedience. There’s nothing in the text here to indicate the exclusion of people based upon that kind of ability to ask that question.
And in fact, in Joshua 4:5, we read similar language when they go through the River Jordan. They take twelve stones up and put it on the side and make a little monument out of these twelve stones so that when you go by there with your kids, it says, and they ask you, “What does this mean?” You can talk to them about how God delivered us and brought us into the land through the River Jordan, how God saved us because we came across the Jordan.
Now, certainly nobody—I don’t think anybody—poses some sort of ritual being performed there where the children were taken at a certain age to these stones to be taught the deliverance? Absolutely not. The plain indication or what we can see in the scripture is that these stones were sitting there and when people walked by them or went to visit that part of the nation, they would see them and they would explain to their children the meaning of them. Why are they there? Why are we doing this thing? And you explain it to them.
I think that frankly this sort of reasoning—that when the children ask to instruct them—is a good basis for household communion. Because when we have communion downstairs and our children see us making us taking a special cup and a special bread, they’re going to ask us what’s going on here. We’ll explain to them.
Show Full Transcript (30,817 characters)
Collapse Transcript
COMMUNION HOMILY
No communion homily recorded.
Q&A SESSION
Q1
Questioner: [Questions about formalized ritual, exclusion by age or understanding in relation to Old Testament nourishment aspects]
Pastor Tuuri: We’ve said that there are other nourishment aspects of the Old Testament as well, and it is important to stress—I keep saying it kind of off-handedly—but we talked about circumcision and other rites of cleansing. And we talked about Passover and we’ll talk a little bit about other Old Testament food and drink being administered in households as well.
But it’s not really a small thing because it is clear that these other things in the Old Testament were commanded of the people by God as sacraments or signs and seals of the covenant. So it is important to see how they were administered as well. Well, in any event, in Deuteronomy 12:7, the peace offering is dealt with there and how to have the peace offering. And there’s clear evidence from that text, Deuteronomy 12:6 and 7, that the peace offering which was to be eaten by the offerer, was to be eaten by his household as well.
All members of the household again. So you had another Old Testament nourishment ordinance that was participated in by households. 1 Corinthians 10:1-4 is a real important passage of scripture because it precedes what Paul’s going to say about communion and is related to it both in the context and also in the line of thought. 1 Corinthians 10:1-4. What he’s talking about is the manna in the wilderness.
It’s also the passage where he talks about “your fathers were all baptized in the Red Sea in the cloud and in the sea and they did all eat the same spiritual meat” (verse 3), and “did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them. And that rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4). Well, he’s saying there’s a reference here obviously to the eating of the manna, the spiritual food that God had given the people of Israel in the wilderness and of the rock that brought forth water.
And he’s saying that those two nourishments there—food and drink again—provided miraculously by God, provided as prefigures of the true food and drink to come, which is Jesus Christ. Those things obviously were also administered to households. These people were starving to death and they were without water. They were thirsting to death. Is anybody—I know of nobody—who would posit that somehow because it was spiritual food and drink and they understood the significance of it, that they withheld it from their small children.
They wouldn’t have had small children very long if they did that. That’s an important verse to recognize: God gave the Old Testament covenant community, by households, food and drink.
Now, my wife doesn’t like this next thing I was going to say, but I found it—as I was studying through it, it struck me—and I’ll just share it with you. It’s not an Old Testament food and drink ordinance as such, but I think it is important typologically: Joseph. And it should be obvious to us that Joseph was a type of Christ. There’s all kinds of things—he was considered dead and came back to life, resurrected as it were, at least to his father—a type of Christ being dead and then made alive again. He saved his people, of course. He had the vision, or rather the dream, where all the other 11 tribes bowed down to him, and his father and his mother also bowed down to him.
He’s the preeminent one who, of course, is prefiguring Jesus Christ, typological of Christ. All the nations of the earth basically came in subjection to Joseph during the time of the drought in Egypt. So again, we see them as a type of Jesus Christ. And I think he’s also a type of Jesus Christ in the fact that there was a drought in the land and no food. And so Joseph had to distribute food to the peoples of the whole world.
And so he’s like Christ administering to us food. And it’s important to recognize that when Jacob—obviously the covenant community—comes back to him, when his other brothers come and he goes through that whole thing and then finally they have a good reunion after everything’s been made right and restituted for. It’s important to recognize that it says that Joseph fed them then by their households.
Joseph nourished the covenant community the same way Christ nourishes his covenant community. And it takes special pains in scripture, I think, in that account of Joseph to say that he did so also for the little ones, for the members of the household who were small. And so we see there also the typological significance of Joseph—of Christ—as feeding all of the household. The Old Testament nourishment ordinances were administered by households.
Now what this means is: if we have the continuity of the covenants, which I think is really clear from the verses we read, if we have Old Testament signs and seals of the covenant being administered by households, what should we expect when we come to the New Covenant? Are we going to require God to tell us again how to administer signs and seals? No. If there is covenant continuity, and if the Old Testament did have household ordinances, then if God wants us now to administer somehow to individuals and not to households, he’s going to make it real clear, isn’t he?
Because otherwise, when we’re reading this Bible and we see that it was all households in the Old Covenant, and now we come to the New Covenant and he starts talking about what we’re to do with baptism and communion, he better make it clear to us that we shouldn’t include our kids if he doesn’t want us to—because we’re going to presuppose we should. Because God is, after all, the author of the entire scriptures.
The burden of proof is upon those who say that there is no continuity in terms of the administration of the sacraments, both of baptism and communion. They’ve got to demonstrate that, and they attempt to do so. We’ll deal with that. But let’s look at the New Testament now and see the two sacraments: baptism and communion, cleansing and nourishment. And to see how they were administered, we would expect to see baptism administered to households, wouldn’t we?
Why would we expect to see it administered to households? Based upon the household being the covenant unit in the Old Covenant and the fact that the Old Covenant cleansing—circumcision and then the washings as well—were administered to households. And that’s just what we find in scriptures. We find repeatedly in the account of the early church that households are baptized. In Acts 2:39, it says, “The promise is unto you and to your children.”
Okay? Again, there’s a demonstration of covenant continuity because he’s quoting it from portions of the Old Covenant. In Acts 11:14, Peter gives his account of the three men that came to him, and he says that the men were told that they would be saved—them and all their household. Again, salvation there seen as being demonstrated to households. In Acts 16:15, we have Lydia and her baptism, and her whole household is also applied the sign to—the household baptism of Lydia.
Verse 31 of Acts 16 describes the Philippian jailer who is baptized in the middle of the night with all of his household as well. 1 Corinthians 1:16, the household of Stephanus. Paul says, “I baptize the household of Stephanus.” And I don’t think here we necessarily see, as some people do, a “name it and claim it” sort of thing. We’re not saying that God somehow promises that if we become a Christian, everybody in our family will be a Christian.
I don’t think he’s saying that at all. What he’s saying is real easy to understand if you read the Bible from Genesis 1 through Revelation. And that is: that in the same way the covenants were administered by households in the Old Covenant, so the same thing is true of the New Covenant. The basic covenantal unit is the household and the family. And so we see evidences of that in baptism.
Secondly, in terms of communion, do we see there some commands by God that says “don’t have the little ones involved in eating of the bread and the wine”? Do we see that kind of thing, which we would expect from God if he’s going to change the method of distribution of the ordinances? No, we don’t see that at all. In fact, we see evidence in 1 Corinthians 10 and 11 that households were indeed included in that sacrament as well.
1 Corinthians 10—we just talked about that a little while ago—talking about manna and the rock that was Christ and the living water that came out of it, that was administered to households. And he’s using that as a prelude to talk about communion. And so if we’re going to take anything from those verses, what we should take from those verses is: there’s continuity in terms of the nourishment of Jesus Christ given to households.
So the context of the teaching in 1 Corinthians 11 on communion includes 1 Corinthians 10 on the manna and on the rock, and therefore it’s one more evidence that there is inclusion of households in the sacrament of communion. 1 Corinthians 11:20 has instruction here about some abuses that were taking place in terms of the supper. But when you come together therefore in one place, “This is not to eat the Lord’s supper. For in eating, everyone taketh before another his own supper; and one is hungry, and another is drunken. What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? Or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not?” (1 Corinthians 11:20-22).
The problem was in 1 Corinthians—they were coming together and they were having a regular meal instead of saying, “This is a communion meal.” And as a result of that, they were denying the unity of the body demonstrated in communion. Everybody had his own supper when they got together. But the important thing to recognize is they were eating dinner together here. He doesn’t say, “What? Don’t you know you’re not supposed to have supper? Get the kids away from that table. Don’t let them eat that stuff.” He doesn’t say that. What they’re doing came out of what was correct—to get together by households.
Now they’ve perverted it. They’ve made an ordinary meal out of it and they’ve eaten. They haven’t shared their food one with another, and so demonstrated contempt for the body of Christ. And some would actually go hungry because they didn’t have enough food to bring to eat. It’s ironic that those people who use this passage of scripture to say that as a result of this, children should be somehow excluded from the table, end up doing the very thing that Paul warns the Corinthians against—which was to exclude people from the table by there being an ordinary meal and not providing for the poor people in the congregation.
The poor people wouldn’t be able to eat in cases because they were too poor or didn’t have food to bring, and so they were excluded. So they were denying the body of Christ. And now we’re going to correct that abuse somehow by getting rid of children and by not giving them anything to eat around the table? Well, that’s again a perversion of what Paul is saying here and flies directly in the face of his teaching that this is a household ordinance.
It’s to demonstrate the household of faith and the inclusion of everybody into that meal. You understand what I’m saying there? To exclude people who are poor is, or to exclude children, is just like excluding those who are poor. And so denies the reality of the bond of the covenant family that Paul is trying to point out here. And again, like I said, it was a meal. So the children would come and I’m sure they ate.
I’m sure they didn’t go home hungry because they were actually having their dinner meal right there at the church.
Q2
Questioner: [Objection regarding 1 Corinthians 11:28—”let a man examine himself”]
Pastor Tuuri: At this point, we probably ought to stop and address another objection to what we’re talking about. This passage of scripture is the passage that is normally used—the only New Testament passage people can usually come up with to refute the idea of infant inclusion in communion.
And they do that because it says here that you should examine yourselves. Paul is saying to the people: “should examine yourselves and so partake.” But you think about it. Does that mean—let’s see how I say this—the presumption there is the person can examine himself, right? And that person who can examine himself is instructed to do so. Okay, that doesn’t necessarily mean that those who can’t examine are excluded.
Otherwise, you’ve got a verse like 2 Thessalonians 3: “If any won’t work, let him go hungry.” Well, you know, we’ve got some little ones in our church who can’t work. Should we exclude them from common food because they can’t work? It’s the same line of reasoning. And it’s the same line of reasoning that a Baptist would use against that same Reformed person who uses this line of reasoning in terms of baptism.
“Repent and be baptized.” Well, in order to be baptized, you’ve got to repent. If you can’t repent, you can’t be baptized. So let’s be consistent here in terms of how we’re handling the scripture.
There is an examination that Paul calls forth based upon the sin that he found in the church at Corinth. And in the exhortation by Paul, it’s directed to the adults participating. It’s not—it does not by any stretch of logic exclude those who were incapable of a full-blown examination of what was going on.
We could spend a lot of time too talking about what the nature of that examination was, and I don’t think the examination is primarily intellectual. The examination there is a simple one: you’re denying the reality of the body of Christ here by excluding people, by having one person have a lot and another person a little. It doesn’t take a child very long to understand what exclusion means.
Where it says “the body of the Lord,” it actually is talking about examining the body—or understanding the body is not complete. It’s not talking about the mystical body of Christ. It’s talking about the concept of the body in the church. That’s the whole context—divisions in the church. When he’s talking about discerning the body correctly, he’s talking about the body of the church and not having these divisions among you.
I thought—you know, another example of this—is when you require fruits of repentance from people, and John said, well, if you’re really repentant, you know, pay back if you’re, you know, do your tax collecting correctly or something. There are statements in the scriptures that are obviously commands, but they’re oriented toward a particular group of people and don’t necessarily mean anything else about people other than the people it’s exhorting.
The good one to keep in mind is 2 Thessalonians 3. Nobody uses that verse to teach the exclusion of children from common food. And they shouldn’t use this verse in Corinthians to teach the exclusion of children from the sacrament when all along the continuity is household participation.
So we see there the continuity of the covenants: Old Testament inclusion of households in the sacraments, New Testament inclusions—or at least evidences of it—and certainly no teaching to the contrary of household involvement in the signs and seals and in baptism and communion.
Q3
Questioner: [Question regarding covenant discontinuity and its implications for household participation]
Pastor Tuuri: But there’s obviously also in Hebrews 9 some discontinuity being discussed. That discontinuity also reaches—teaches, however, a basis for household baptism and communion.
Well, we’ll never make it through all this, but we’ll go quickly through it, I guess. The covenants are discontinuous in several ways. The point that’s going on here is one of the biggest ramifications of covenant discontinuity is that in the New Covenant, things are expanded. The wall of partition in Ephesians 2 we read about the covenants of promise. He says the wall of partition—the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile, circumcised and uncircumcised—has been broken down. The ordinances that provided for separation from the rest of the world have been removed.
What he’s saying is the covenant is expanded now, greatly expanded. Now that’s one of the most important distinctions of the New Covenant to the Old Covenant—the expansion. And how is that taught in terms of the administration of the sacraments? Does that mean we should now restrict the administration of the sacraments which were household ordinances in the Old Testament? Well, no, obviously not.
If the change of the covenants has to do primarily with the expanded blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the expansion of the covenant community, then that also is a basis for household baptism. It wouldn’t teach us to restrict it. It would teach us to expand it, greatly, by adding in people outside of the group we already have. So the discontinuity in terms of the administration of the sacraments also teaches that children should be included.
Q4
Questioner: [Objection regarding the mode of baptism—immersion of infants]
Pastor Tuuri: We also wanted to answer some objections here. I’m going to have to go over this real quickly, but I would like to finish it up.
Some objections. First of all, the objection of mode. Some people say, “Well, if baptism is immersion, then how are you going to immerse a child?” That’s an objection. That is a valid objection. If it really is immersion and we’ve got an 8-day-old child, we’re going to immerse him—he’s likely to, you know, have a lot of spitting or coughing or even drowning, I suppose, going on.
But in plain fact, the plain fact of the matter is that immersion is not synonymous with baptism. I’ll go through this briefly. First of all, the argument from the Greek: people say the word baptism, or “baptizo,” always means to immerse. Well, that just isn’t true. If it’s a Greek argument we’re talking about, then we can use extrabiblical sources, right? Because all we’re trying to do is say: what was that Greek word? How was it used?
Well, if you look at, for instance, in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), Daniel 4:33, or verse 30 of the Septuagint, but Daniel 4:33 in the Old Testament, Nebuchadnezzar is said to have been baptized. The word uses “baptizo” there. Nebuchadnezzar is “baptized” at the dew of the morning. If the Greek word always means to be immersed, then Nebuchadnezzar somehow got immersed in dew. It doesn’t hold true.
In Ecclesiasticus 34:25 (extrabiblical source, admittedly, but let’s look at how he uses the word, the Greek word baptism, at the time), what it says is there’s a discussion there about the waters of purification. If you touch something you’re unclean, you’ve got to be sprinkled and so become purified. And it’s talking about the necessity of baptism in terms of the waters of purification.
And yet we know explicitly from Numbers 19:13-20 that those waters of purification were sprinkled. And so Ecclesiasticus 34:25 is using “baptizo” in the sense of sprinkling. Strong evidence that says that word was not always used to mean immerse.
Let’s turn to some biblical texts. In Mark 7:4, it talks about the Pharisees and how they would come in from the marketplace and they baptize various things in their house. Well, they baptized themselves when they got back. They’d also baptize other things in their house at various points in time: cups, which could be immersed; heavy iron vessels, which probably wouldn’t be immersed; and couches as well.
Well, now you know obviously there—you cannot, you would not be immersing your couch all the time, okay? Now there are some people who say well that verse isn’t really in the scriptures. There was a copyist insertion of the word couch. Well, that doesn’t really disprove what we’re saying here, does it? Because the copyist thought it was legitimate Greek to talk about baptizing a couch, he would put it in. If he didn’t think it was legitimate, he never would have inserted it. It would have been ludicrous. So either way you cut it, the word here teaches that baptism of couches was in fact probably actually going on at the time of the New Covenant.
And that means the couches were not being immersed, of course. And so baptism does not mean immersion. And of course, Hebrews 9 is a real clear passage. We just read it about various washings of the Old Covenant. The word there is “baptizo” again. And yet he tells you in Hebrews 9:10 about the various sprinklings of the Old Covenant that were going on. And it’s clear that every one of those occurrences are sprinklings and not immersions.
So when he talks in Hebrews 9 about baptisms, again, we know clearly that is not synonymous with immersion.
Now we don’t have time to look at these, but in Luke 11:38, Matthew 15:2 and 20, and Mark 7:3, those are the three correlative passages about how they always wash their hands when they come in from the marketplace, the Pharisees. And you’ll see they’re interchangeably used: the words for wash, “nipto,” I believe it is, and “baptizo”—interchangeably used, okay? So that’s showing you that baptism also can mean the same thing as the word “nipto.” And we know that Greek word has all kinds of references to things other than immersion.
So the Greek argument simply is not there. That may sound—you know, when I came out of dispensationalism, I thought the Baptists had done all the scholarship. Then I started reading things and doing a little examination that shows that the scholarship has not been there in terms of, for instance, this occurrence.
Q5
Questioner: [Objection based on baptism signifying death, burial, and resurrection]
Pastor Tuuri: Secondly, the sign argument also is used. We say that well, baptism signifies the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Therefore, it’s got to be immersion down into something and bringing it back up.
Well, you know, you could use that kind of thing for a lot of rationale. Why don’t we use—why don’t we dig holes in the ground and use dirt if we really want to demonstrate death, burial, and resurrection? In Romans 6:3, which is one of the verses they’ll use to indicate that—one of only two verses—what it’s saying is “been baptized into the death of Christ.” And it talks about therefore also the burial. You’re not baptized into the death and burial. You’re baptized into the death of Christ, okay?
There’s union with the death of Christ. And he goes on to show that because of that, there’s another conjunction that goes to burial. So you’ve got baptism into death, and death means burial. And therefore baptism goes over to burial. But you see what I’m saying? He didn’t say that baptism shows death and burial. He said there’s union with Christ’s death, and from that burial. So you can’t get baptism showing burial.
In Acts 2:38, you’ll be told to be baptized for the remission of your sins with obvious reference to cleansing. In Acts 22:16, you’re told to be baptized and wash away your sins. Not death, burial, and resurrection. A washing being signified by baptism. In 1 Corinthians 12, we’re baptized into the body of Christ. And in Galatians 3:27, whoever has been baptized has put on Jesus Christ. Does that mean we should use coats or something? No.
What I’m saying here is that when you look at baptism and what’s being signed by it in terms of the covenant, you see a great variety of things. Why is that? Because it isn’t teaching just one element. It’s teaching union with the covenant and with the covenant mediator. And if we have union with the covenant mediator, who is Jesus Christ, then we are baptized into the body of Christ. We’ve been washed and cleansed through Christ’s blood. We do have union with him in his death and his burial and resurrection.
All these things are singular aspects of our union with Christ, which is what baptism is speaking about. Mode is nowhere near as important. Different modes can demonstrate different elements of our union with Christ. But what he’s saying is that baptism is the sign of that union itself.
And to take just one aspect of what’s been accomplished through Christ’s union and not take the others will result in bad theology down the line. If we say that our inclusion into the covenant is solely into the death, burial, and resurrection and not the washing away and not the putting on of Christ, then we’re going to downplay sanctification. Of course, that’s just what’s happened in the churches.
Q6
Questioner: [Practical implications—what does all this mean for us and our children?]
Pastor Tuuri: What does all this mean to us? I think what this means to us is that we should be presuming the covenant participation of our children—inclusion as part of our households into our household of faith. And the children are entitled and obligated to enter therein. It’s a privilege that they have because they’re born into covenant households, but it’s an obligation they have as well.
And if you’re withholding these things from your children, that is bad. As I mentioned earlier, if you didn’t have circumcision, you were cut off. Moses, when he was going to deliver his people, hadn’t circumcised his son. God sought to put him to death. It’s an important thing. We read earlier that at the Passover, God commanded Moses to have this: “an ordinance for you and your household for generations to come” (Exodus 12:24).
Same thing is commanded, is binding upon us today: to administer the signs of covenant initiation, of covenant cleansing, and of covenant nourishment in food and drink that we talk about in the New Covenant and the Old Covenant. It’s important to administer those signs of covenant cleansing and covenant nourishment to our households because it’s the law of God. And we know that today, those covenants are baptism and communion.
If we don’t want to do that, we better start reexamining the way we approach our children. We teach our children, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to them belong. They are weak, but he is strong.” If we’re telling them they don’t belong to Christ and can’t have the sign of baptism—the sign, the mark of God’s ownership upon them—and can’t have the sign of that ownership in terms of God nourishing his own household, then how can our children sing that until they come to a profession of faith?
We presuppose their profession of faith from day one with our children. Now, I don’t know anybody who doesn’t do that. I know Finney talked about you should raise kids as pagans so they can have a good conversion experience, but nobody does that. Everybody teaches their kids the things of God from day one, presupposing that they’re going to respond in faith. And they teach their children that song to reinforce that response in faith. And that’s good and proper.
But the thing that God has given us to reinforce that faith, to demonstrate it to them, to call them to obedience in it, are the signs that he’s given us. Those are the primary methods: baptism and communion. My children know they’re baptized. They don’t have to remember it. They know it. Communion. That’s the sign of covenant continuance. The sign of God nourishing his people. And when they come here every Sunday and take communion, it’s important to them.
We’re not supposed to be pegging our salvation upon baptism, which happened 50 years ago. That’s just what the Jews do with circumcision. He said, “Forget it. Circumcision avails nothing if you don’t respond in faith.” It’s their participation in the nourishment sacraments that God has given us that demonstrate they are still in covenant relationship to God. They haven’t been excommunicated or excluded. That’s what they’re to pin their assurance on. That’s what God has given them for nourishment.
God says that our children are his. They’re to be marked as his. They’re to be nourished as his children. We’re to make disciples and baptize the nations. Who are our best disciples? Our children are our best disciples. What’s required of a disciple? If we’re to make disciples and baptize them, then what do we wait for before we baptize them?
Is a disciple one who has attained? Does a person become a disciple by obtaining a body of knowledge? No. They become a disciple to obtain the body of knowledge. They follow after Christ. A disciple—so that they will learn, not demonstrating that they have learned. They follow him. Are they supposed to have some great experience in order to be a disciple? Do you have to attain to a spiritual experience before you can be a disciple? Obviously not. What’s required? To follow Christ. That’s what the disciples did. If they followed Christ, they were his disciples.
And if we’re to make disciples and as a result of the disciple, if the person’s following, we’re to administer baptism to them, we’re commanded to do that.
Man’s problem is not primarily intellectual or experiential. Man’s problem is moral. Therefore, sacrament of nourishment should be given to our children, not waiting for some sort of intellectual attainment in terms of memorizing a set of catechism questions on the one hand (and therefore seeming to teach them that it’s an intellectual attainment of faith and nourishment from God) or on the other hand waiting till they have a good conversion experience and then baptizing them and giving communion and teaching them their response is what’s important.
We teach our children that God’s sovereign call is what’s important, and he has called them into covenant households. And he called those parents in obedience to his call to have marked them for his own and they nourish those children because they’ve been called by God—are called as his. That’s true confirmation for the children to continue in the faith, following Jesus Christ’s disciples, acting in moral obedience to his commandments through faith and underneath the government of his church as applied in the sacraments.
We’re to nourish our children in the faith. We believe in this church, and I think it’s clearly taught in scripture, that the communion service does nourish us. Calvin says that Christ doesn’t promise something without giving us the fulfillment of it. He doesn’t say this represents the covenant and then not give us the benefits of the covenant through the elements.
Jesus says in John 6 that he himself is the true bread to come down from heaven. And so we know that God promises to give us food and drink and spiritual nourishment, and he will give it to us through communion and through the preaching of the word. Well, it’s important for our children as well. We think it’s important to nourish ourselves weekly in this church through the teaching of the word and through the elements. That’s important for our children as well.
We should want our children to have assurance of faith, and that assurance is demonstrated to them by their covenant inclusion in the covenant nourishment sacraments. We also want our children to have a warning though about their importance—that they do keep obedience to them. How do we warn our children? Well, God has given us a sacrament of covenant continuance—communion—through which their participation is shown and from which they’ll be excluded if they walk in disobedience. That warning that is certainly there in communion should also be given to our children.
Lastly, we want to call our children to covenant rededication. Every Sunday when we get together and hear God’s word and partake of the elements, we’re reratifying that covenant God made with us. We’re taking the signs and seals again of covenant nourishment. And it’s important that our children see themselves as reratifying that covenant on a weekly basis and showing God’s sovereign claim over them.
Our children are God’s children.
Dennis Tuuri 
Leave a comment