Jesus and Covenant – 2
Raising Cain
“Just as Circumcision made impossible a global corruption,
so paedobaptism makes impossible a global Gospel.”
Part 1 here.
With so many young people leaving the Church, it is no wonder that there is a push to renew an understanding of biblical Covenant. Giving our children a profound sense of their “Covenant identity” is a crucial means of re-establishing the Covenant framework which has been neglected. Unfortunately, those pushing for these things are going about it in entirely the wrong way, because they are re-establishing the wrong Covenant.
Covenant Obligation
As Christian parents, we want our children to grow up to be like Abel, and not like Cain. The problem with using baptism to impart a “Covenant identity” is that this is not what baptism is for. Cain and Abel both had the same Covenant identity. Although their roles in worship differed, both were under a similar obligation when it came to faith. Abel was to offer blood to cover, once again, the sin in the Garden; Cain was then to offer the firstfruits of the Land. But Cain pushed in and made his offering first, apparently a refusal to acknowledge the sovereignty of God. This was Pentecost before Firstfruits, kingdom before priesthood, a grasping of dominion without prior submission to God. It was the sin of Adam on a grander scale. [1]
Cain’s rebellion resulted in the establishment of a new identity, a pagan one. The curse upon him, though withheld, became a curse upon his children. The human race was divided into two tribes: a priestly clan which still recognised and worshiped God and a kingly order which did not. Intermarriage corrupted the priesthood and only one family remained submitted to God. The question is this: did those in the fortress of the Cainites no longer have any obligation to God? Of course they did, and eventually the entire civilization died in the Great Flood.
After the sin at Babel, humanity was headed for another flood, but God stepped in and divided the entire race in two through circumcision. A Covenant was established with Abraham and his offspring, with specific promises, that they might eventually be a blessing to the nations outside of this Covenant. Under Moses, the continuity of these promised blessings was bound through the Law, which meant that not only was Israel a “cultivated Land,” she would also be “pruned” from time to time, disciplined by God because of His great love for these children, His “firstborn.” Were the other nations under these Covenant obligations? Not directly. The nations surrounding Israel were blessed or cursed depending upon their treatment of Abraham’s offspring, but Israel was the focus. When Israel sinned, God also used these nations to curse and purify her. In all cases, this Covenant concerned only Abraham’s offspring until it was fulfilled. The Gentiles were under no obligation to either the Abrahamic Circumcision or the Mosaic Law.
Split Identities
Israel’s Covenant identity was not a removal of the obligation of the nations but an expansion of the office of Abel in worship, that is, the offering of representative blood. When it came to actual salvation, an Abrahamic “Covenant identity” simply meant that you were the first to hear. While this Covenant was in force, the Gospel always went first to the Jew and then to the Gentile. Likewise, when judgment came, it came first upon Israel and then upon the nations. But both were still under obligation to God.
The Jew was to hear and believe, and through Israel, Gentiles were also to hear and believe. When it comes to salvation, this has always been the case. Israel’s “Covenant identity” in Abraham was a corporate liturgical office, not salvation itself. Hence, the doctrine of “paedofaith” is a wishful contrivance, an illegitimate hybrid of the promise to the believer and this obsolete Old Covenant sacrificial office. As we see in the prophets, God’s blessings and curses came upon all those who heard Israel’s testimony. In all cases, faith, which came by hearing, would result in works, and God always judged their faith (or lack of it) by their works. Through the testimony of Jonah, Nineveh was saved. Despite the testimony of Nahum, Nineveh was destroyed. If their works were faithful, then they were obviously converted. Regarding their offices, they remained Jews or Gentiles, Abels or Cains, brothers with different gifts but both in the service of God. One could be a believer or an unbeliever regardless of whether one was commissioned to offer blood, or to offer fruits from the ground (kingdom riches). The Old Covenant identity was with regard to ministry, not salvation, just as Abel kept sheep and Cain worked in the field. Both were required to repent and believe. Once the offerings were made, these fulfilled offices became meaningless. Once Christ was offered as better Abel, and the Herodian order judged as greater Cain, circumcision and uncircumcision became meaningless.
A Division of Flesh
The cultural separation of Jew and Gentile was for the purpose of preventing the kind of unity of culture which destroyed the original world in the flood and threatened to destroy the new world of Noah. At a global level, it split humanity irrevocably into Church and State. The usurping of priesthood by kingdom, the co-opting of the Church by the State, was impossible without the breaking down of the “wall of enmity,” circumcision and the Law, the Covenant obligations of the Jews. Though similar sins were committed within the bounds of the circumcision, a global corruption was made impossible through the curses of the Law. The Law put a hedge around the ministry of Abel (Genesis 4), and prevented the “Cainites” from intermarrying with the “Sethites” (Genesis 6) or uniting to build a new Babel. Thus, the identity conferred in circumcision was a Covenant within a Covenant, Abrahamites as a priestly people within a Noahic world, Abels among Cains, sheep among wolves. When Israel’s priests, kings and people behaved like Cainites, God gave them over to the real Cainites for discipline and eventual purging. Just as animals died on Israel’s behalf, so Israel was judged on the world’s behalf. Israel would always die as the firstborn, a first fruits of blood separated from the rest of the world. But Israel, unlike the other nations, would also rise from the dead.
The Covenant identity of Israel, conferred due to the personal faith of Abraham, was a sacrificial obligation which was fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus is the sacrificial flesh of Israel, offered in faith on behalf of all nations. The Jewish identity, the offering of the blood of the firstborn, finally ascended to heaven in Christ. True priesthood was finally accomplished and true kingdom could come, a dominion sourced in submission to God and priestly service. The end of Circumcision came because the Abelic ministry was completed in Christ. The end of the Temple avenged not only the blood of Christ but also the blood of Abel. The end of the Jewish identity necessarily ended the Gentile identity, as the submersion of the Land makes the demarcation of “sea” meaningless. All the kingdoms of the world, offered to Jesus at the hand of Satan, are now His at the hand of the Father.
Now that this division of offices is gone, the only Covenant identity which remains is the one common to all men, as it was common to both Cain and Abel, the obligation to repent and trust God. The New Covenant did not introduce a souped-up Abrahamic identity, a new division of fleshly offices. It fulfilled and exalted one which already existed: repentance and faith, something which was always available to both Jew and Gentile, who in the larger picture were under the same Covenant in Noah. This fact was the basis for the decision of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 (See A Change Of The Law).
Since the ministry of shedding blood is now fulfilled, there is no such “Covenant-within-a-Covenant” identity in existence. With the Old Covenant completed, there is no “Covenant identity” outside of the call to repent and believe. Since the world is no longer divided into the offices of Jew and Gentile, there is no need to signify separate obligations. Logically, baptism cannot confer a Covenant obligation, because we are all under the New Covenant obligation to repent and believe. Thus, baptism can neither make a “Covenant child,” nor confer salvation in any sense upon an infant.
A Global Covenant
Those who believe that baptism, whether of an infant, a child or an adult, puts that person “into Covenant with God” have not understood what makes the New Covenant new. Circumcision marked out a cultural “office,” the shedding of blood, an obligation which has now been fulfilled in Christ. Baptism marks out a personal response, the answer of a good conscience towards God, which has also now been fulfilled in Christ. But these are not the same. One is death, and one is resurrection. One is an objective execution, the other a subjective profession.
The idea that baptism puts somebody “into Covenant with God” in the way that circumcision put Abraham’s seed into Covenant with God, not only limits the scope of its obligation to the confines of the Church, it leads to the mistaken belief that evangelism is about unbelievers joining the Covenant with its obligations rather than responding to the Gospel because they are already condemned. Evangelism is not an extension of the New Covenant obligation across the world, as though the nations were joining some sort of renovated Old Covenant Israel. God forbid. Evangelism is for the purpose of a response to that obligation, a response which confers complete fulfillment of those obligations on one’s behalf by Christ.
So, how do we give our children a “New Covenant identity”? By teaching them of their “Adamic” obligation to Jesus, one which they possess simply by being born, and that this “death-note” was fulfilled by Christ. They are not born Christians, but neither are they born pagans, because the Gospel sees to it that the world is no longer divided in such a way. It challenges every identity by proclaiming the one common to all.
Using baptism to signify some kind of legal obligation between a child and God is an unwitting testimony that Christ has not come in the flesh, that the ministry of bloodshed is not complete, that the blood of Abel has not been avenged. It makes the Church a wall of flesh between God and the nations rather than a torn veil, a door open to the rebel in us all.
Paedobaptism gives to the world a false picture of both the work of Jesus and the prophetic office of each Christian, the profession of one’s faith. Paedobaptism puts the unbeliever outside the obligations of the New Covenant, which are repentance and faith. It basically tells the world to go and build a city, because God is concerned only with His “Covenant people,” and has not given all the kingdoms of the world to His Son. Thus, paedobaptism not only confers upon infants membership in a Covenant which no longer exists, and thus gives them a false identity by treating repentance and faith as though it were an inherited “office” like that of the Jew, it makes the Church a closed veil between the obligation of all people and the throne of Jesus, the Open Door who Himself is the New Covenant.
There is no “identity” which is outside of the New Covenant, and this is the basis for evangelism. Just as Circumcision made impossible a global corruption, so paedobaptism makes impossible a global Gospel.
NEXT POST: Raising Canaan
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[1] I believe that if Cain had not killed Abel, a third son would have been the Prophet, rather than Seth, a replacement priest. This incomplete architecture was fulfilled in the three sons of Noah. See The Last Sin.
July 3rd, 2014 at 12:02 am
Hi Mike,
I definitely see continuity between the Old Testament (Covenant) and the New. Jesus is the last Adam, he is the new Israel, he is the Temple made without hands,etc.. I think there is continuity of the two OT ordinances, of Passover and Circumcision, with the two NT ordinances of the Lord’s Supper and Baptism. Jesus instituted the the Lord’s Supper out of the Passover meal. Paul seems to make a connection between circumcision and baptism in Col.2:11-12
I am not a Paedobaptist, but there does seem to be this continuity. Both are signs of identity. But in the New Covenant the “identity” has nothing to do with race or gender. Those restrictions are removed in Christ (as you said it is now a torn veil/open door).
July 3rd, 2014 at 10:25 am
Hi David
Certainly there is continuity, but it is the continuity between type and antitype, or in sacrificial terms, between flesh and smoke.
The shedding of blood, beginning in Eden, and including circumcision, was a call to a circumcised heart. Baptism, however, is not a call to repentance. It is the vindication of a response to that call. Thus paedobaptism mischaracterises “Christian” and the Church. We are sons of Abraham because we have the faith of Abraham. Because of their misunderstanding, paedobaptists misinterpret Paul’s statement that those of faith are sons of Abraham, as if this refers to our physical offspring. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Both are signs of identity, but they are very different identities. Baptism is a sign of something which existed under the Old Covenant in both Jew and Gentile, that is, personal faith and repentance.
The only way to understand what this continuity actually is, is to understand the architecture. Once that is understood, paedobaptism is impossible to defend.
Thanks!
July 4th, 2014 at 10:49 pm
Mike,
I might be pragmatic, but I still see the out working of this hermeneutic constrained: how do we treat our children? I fail to see baptists treating their children as enemies until faith; rather, they are presbyterian in sheep’s clothing when they treat their children as members of the cov’t with all the privileges (sans the meal). I can actually “see” your point, but who would watch my children for me at home while I go to worship?
July 4th, 2014 at 11:09 pm
Mike,
(please answer only in the affirmative or negative [i.e. do not elaborate as I will follow up with that opportunity])
Are you saying that,
1) under the NC, humanity is now one as is was post-diluvian/pre-abraham?
2)baptism is in no way a covenant marker, but that only F&R are?
July 4th, 2014 at 11:11 pm
Travis, I think you’re bringing your “Covenant children” baggage with you. Why would anyone treat their child as an enemy? This is the “inside vs. outside” beat up that this erroneous Abrahamic emphasis results in. My whole point is that not only our “church” kids are already under the Covenant, every man, woman and child is under it. New Testament worship is “open” worship. Everyone is welcome, even the unregenerate, the unbaptised, and that of course includes our children. Exodus 24 is a big help. Everyone was involved in the worship, but not every member of Israel went up the mountain – only the representatives, the “mediators” if you like. It is a replica of the layout of the Tabernacle. You’re only going to “get” the New Covenant if you leave the “Abrahamic demarcation of flesh” behind. The New Covenant “is” Jesus, and baptism is for those who respond to Him. Probably the biggest help is understanding that circumcision and the various rites were about “who could come in.” Baptism is about who can “go out” as witnesses to the resurrection – it is for those who have heard, believed and now testify.
July 4th, 2014 at 11:22 pm
I do not see p-baptism as putting the unbeliever outside the obligations of the NC nor that God is merely concerned with his “cov’t people” via baptism. First, p-b does not negate F&R any more than saying communion does. As signs of the cov’t both sacraments demand F&R. Does the meal not place the unbeliever outside the cov’t? Does the meal not call for F&R? Second, why baptise at all if F&R are what makes for cov’t? I feel like your heightened emphasis on the “plerao” of Christ should put an end to all sacraments. You say that Christ’s ministry ends all bloodshed and that p-b precludes that conclusion. But this then begs the question of what do the sacraments then symbolise and declare? As sacraments they are demarcations by nature and this seems to be what you are trying to establish: there are no markers b/t humanity any longer, so that even calling one an “unbeliever” is to deny the NC. How can you not have an unbeliever/believer distinction?
July 4th, 2014 at 11:22 pm
1) under the NC, humanity is now one as is was post-diluvian/pre-abraham?
Yep. As it was then, the only difference being that baptism makes every individual a Noah.
2) baptism is in no way a covenant marker, but that only F&R are?
There’s no “Covenant marker” because, as it was in Noah’s day, this Covenant concerns “all flesh.” As above, baptism is not about “who can come in.” Baptism is for the mediators of the Covenant – the “angels” with the ev-ANGEL – in place of the angels who administered the Old Covenant.
July 4th, 2014 at 11:48 pm
In your “Change of Law” again, I read your erroneous assertion: Baptism won’t save them, but the gospel will.
Who says this? Not we. You make the statement here in this post and in the one cited above. Where do you find this assertion being made by we who are p-b? en guard!
July 4th, 2014 at 11:50 pm
Thanks for the discussion.
I do not see p-baptism as putting the unbeliever outside the obligations of the NC nor that God is merely concerned with his “cov’t people” via baptism.
If baptism puts on “into Covenant,” then those who are not “in” are not under obligation. Also, things probably look different from inside the PB fishbowl. From the outside, it looks like a human demarcation, just one more ethnic or social distinction among many. This entirely misrepresents the Gospel.
First, p-b does not negate F&R any more than saying communion does. As signs of the cov’t both sacraments demand F&R.
Certainly, which is why well-meaning PBs invented paedofaith. Since our babies are Covenant children, they must be Christians, and if they are Christians, then they must believe! The crazy leaps in logic made by some very intelligent people just make me shake my head. Besides being far-fetched, it’s entirely against the grain of not only the New Testament, but also the Old.
Does the meal not place the unbeliever outside the cov’t?
No. It places them outside of those commissioned to preach and die for the Gospel, much like Israel’s priesthood within Israel itself. But not it is not just Israel who must “hear.” Architecturally, the mediators are within the “water” boundary (the Laver, the tent) and the hearers are the “blood” boundary (Israel, but now ALL nations). I’ve tried to explain this to my FV friends but they either can’t or won’t understand it.
Does the meal not call for F&R? Second, why baptise at all if F&R are what makes for cov’t?
See above. The Covenant boundary is now not merely Israel but “all nations.” So what do paedobaptists do? Their weird understanding of baptism as a Covenant boundary marker makes them think that Jesus’ command was to baptise one nation at a time in some sort of “civil baptism,” rather than as a command to baptise believing Gentiles (ethnoi) now and not merely Jews. Once again, I shake my head in bewilderment.
I feel like your heightened emphasis on the “plerao” of Christ should put an end to all sacraments.
Very good point. This is because the sacramentalists see the sacraments as a means of salvation, rather than as a testimony. Certainly, baptism “saved” (delivered) the first fruits saints from the old order, but they were baptised because they believed. Faith puts you into the Head and baptism puts you into the Body (the saints who have heard your testimony). Baptism doesn’t “infuse” the Spirit into anybody. God blesses the baptizand’s obedience, as He did at Jesus’ baptism. The sacraments are a means of testifying (liturgically). In baptism, we make a vow. In the table, we maintain the vow. In Church discipline, the Church maintains the meaning of the vow. And what does the vow mean? Personal repentance and faith.
You say that Christ’s ministry ends all bloodshed and that p-b precludes that conclusion.
This is because the hereditary / tribal / national sign of “blood” was about the death of the flesh. Paedobaptism celebrates the fruit of the womb. You gents can deny it, but if it looks like a dog, feels like a dog, and smells like a dog, it isn’t a cat. Witness Uri’s (God love ‘im) ecstatic exclamation that “another child of God was born into the world.” Scary. And unbiblical.
But this then begs the question of what do the sacraments then symbolise and declare?
Who was baptised? Those who declared their faith and would in most cases fill up the sufferings of Jesus and possibly die. That’s what the sacraments declare. When Jesus said to Peter “feed my sheep” He wasn’t talking about little children, but sacrificial disciples being “fattened” for the slaughter. The focus on offspring is not only past its use-by-date (now that the Son has come), it’s almost idolatrous when it twists NT texts like this. There’s a reason that neither Jesus nor Paul had offspring, and why Paul referred to Timothy as his “son.” Things have moved on. The sacraments declare that we are prophets who eat with God on the sea.
As sacraments they are demarcations by nature and this seems to be what you are trying to establish: there are no markers b/t humanity any longer, so that even calling one an “unbeliever” is to deny the NC. How can you not have an unbeliever/believer distinction?
As above, the demarcation is between preachers and hearers. Both are under Covenant. Like Abel (“hebel”), Solomon (as the preacher) was the shepherd in Israel, declaring everything that could be seen without faith to be “mist,” that is, a temporary veil. Then, of course, like Cain, he went and built himself a godless city!
July 4th, 2014 at 11:56 pm
Baptism won’t save them, but the gospel will.
I’m simply saying that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Attempts to “infuse” the Gospel into a baby through sprinkling or giving it bread and wine (signs of willingness to die!) are turned into substitutes for the Gospel, rather than testimonies by those who have believed.
July 15th, 2014 at 11:11 am
It will take me some time to digest all this, but let me say this: no one talks the way you do and if that is the case, no one knows what you know. Not saying that makes you wrong, but who else says what you are saying? I’ve never heard it put that way, and if anyone could sway me….it might be you.
July 15th, 2014 at 11:41 am
Thanks Travis.
Yeah, they do. They just haven’t put the pieces together yet to get this outcome because they think in little boxes. If anyone can understand this, it will be you.