promise

When the Seed Flowers

February 8, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

There’s an important exegetical point which we make whenever we baptize a child of believing parents. We don’t baptize babies because we want to coo over sweet little cherubs, with all their adorable chins of baby fat. We do this because faithful exposition of Scripture demands it.

God didn’t decide to wad up the promise He’d made to Abraham and pitch it out the window and start from scratch with Jesus and those who believe in Him. The coming of Christ isn’t the failure of God’s promise to Abraham, it’s the fulfillment. Likewise, baptism isn’t a replacement of circumcision, it’s the flower of that seed.

Jesus was the fulfillment of what God had promised to Abraham. All those who trust in Christ are true children of Abraham and share in the same promise which was made to him. The exegetical point we make here is that God’s promise stands as firm now as it did that starry night when God assured Abraham that His seed would possess the gates of his enemies. God has promised and He will make good. This baptism is a faithful reception of that same promise to us & to our children.

So welcome covenant child to Jesus Christ…

The Promiser of Baptism

January 5, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

Promises are only as good as the one who makes the promise. A politician’s promise is worth about as much as a Zimbabwean $1,000,000,000,000 bill (perhaps an insult to Zimbabwe’s currency). You should be rightly incredulous if you get an email promising they’ll wire you a share of a Thai prince’s inheritance, if you provide your bank account number.

The word of promise is reliable or suspect all depending on the nature of the Promiser. Baptism is a promise, but Who is promising in this sign of baptism? The One who is promising salvation by grace through faith to this child is the King of Israel. His nature is not fickle; His character doesn’t ebb & flow; His purpose doesn’t change with fads; His will isn’t determined by public opinion polls. As Solomon once prayed, “there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by the hand of Moses his servant (1 Kng. 8:56).”

He spoke light into being, and it was. He promised a Seed to Eve, and after many years, He was born in Bethlehem. He promised that He’d die & rise again, and He arose triumphant. Christ the Promiser now promises to these parents & their child, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out (Jn. 6:37).”

So welcome covenant child to Jesus Christ…

God Means It

August 24, 2020 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

A common misunderstanding about baptism is thinking it’s a big sign pointing towards the amount of faith in the one being baptized. But since we can’t read men’s hearts, we’ll never know what degree of faith is present when someone is baptized.

This apparent problem has led some to ask what we should do if someone is baptized but doesn’t mean it, or, from another angle, if a child is baptized in infancy can they really mean it? The reply of Scripture is that regardless of whether the one baptized means it or not, God does (Gal. 3:27, 2 Cor. 5:17, Rom. 6:3, 11). When we’re baptized, God reckons us as His own, He promises all the blessings of union with Christ, and He warns against unbelief.

Baptism isn’t an opportunity to showboat how great our faith is. It’s a sign of how great God’s promise is. A baptized person may not be old enough to grasp it yet, they may go through a season of doubting that promise, or old age may cause the mental recall of their baptism to fade. But God does not forget His promise. In short, when we baptize someone, we aren’t highlighting whether they mean it or not. We’re proclaiming that God means it. We’re simply commanded to trust Him when He says He means it (Mk. 16:16).