00:11:11.280It is a one-way stream and I am 1689, but it's a one-way stream and the Presbyterians
00:11:16.580are upstream, so to speak, to where it's like, okay, we hold this position and we can
00:11:21.380accommodate that and and it but it doesn't which is why you have you know like someone like mark
00:11:26.100dever that won't serve lig and duncan the lord's supper in his service um you know it because of
00:11:30.920his baptist you know what i mean like that's a commonly known position yeah yeah that's the that
00:11:37.220is the deal and both people are being consistent in their their outflows of the theological
00:11:42.580structures you know so right and uh man this is like when it uh this was a weird uh it was a
00:11:50.300personal anecdote but you know i was raised in a southern baptist church and i said in my follow-up
00:11:57.680you know look guys not only was i baptist like 10 minutes ago but i was um i used to be an american
00:12:05.360like the american baptist variety not the second london covenantal variety i said i still get a
00:12:12.020pancreas to do an altar call sometime in the bed. I think everyone loves this American Baptist
00:12:21.780culture. Everybody's got an American Baptist grandmother. And there's so many beautiful
00:12:30.460things about it. Gospel straight up the middle things about it. And when the shift happened,
00:12:37.360And, you know, the covenantal catastrophe of things shifting around, it was weird because it was more, it was this weird opening up of, like, I love my Baptist brothers just as much as I did when I was a Baptist, if not more.
00:13:02.340and appreciate their consistency and appreciate the fight.
00:13:08.000So that was a weird shift when it happens.
00:13:12.240And some of it is just looking at Baptist identity,
00:13:15.840even as, you know, they're sons of the Separatist Puritans.0.93
00:13:20.000That's what the real Reformed Baptists are.0.86
00:13:22.820And, you know, you have this fight in Baptist world0.76
00:13:24.560between the Anabaptists of the Reformation
00:13:27.220and then the sons of the Puritans in England
00:13:57.900And they do this in order to keep a pure church, regenerate church membership.
00:14:02.620And I think I read somewhere, this is early 1600s, when you have the first Reformed Baptist church, you might say, particular Baptist church there in England.
00:14:12.920But I think I read somewhere that Jeremiah Burroughs, the Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs, Peter Baptist, blessed those who went to do it.
00:14:22.900I can't remember where, but I remember just coming across it at some point.
00:14:25.440And I thought, well, that's an awesome moment of unity.
00:14:27.900And there's still a ton of community, but the impulse of that, of the Reformed Baptists really is like, hey, we can't baptize these infants because we're bringing them into the church.0.91
00:14:38.340And if we bring unregenerate people into the church, we're going to pollute the church.0.95
00:14:42.400And the church is the pillar and buttress of the truth.
00:14:47.860And so to be in that camp and think that way, I understand what Reformed Baptist brothers that know what they're thinking about, how they would think about what happened when I came.
00:15:01.600like oh you just stepped from the separatist puritan position um to more of a puritan within
00:15:09.920the church tradition and that feels like a um a corruption of the church which is eventually going
00:15:17.920to erode the gospel being preached on earth but it's weird because when you make that shift
00:18:40.120But they're right to point out that there's a difference between the ministry out here in Moscow and what you're getting kind of by and large in American Presbyterianism.
00:18:53.820so um i i've talked to one um one scottish presbyterian which is always dangerous because
00:19:03.980the accent immediately convinces you that they're right doesn't matter what they say
00:19:08.720you know just like you're just dead you're just in trouble um it was very interesting in this
00:19:14.100this um older older brother uh great um theologian all that kind of stuff would actually
00:19:22.300said um he said oh jared the american despedidians have lost their heritage and i was like oh boy so
00:19:33.900um it was interesting for him across the pond to to say um you had a whole bunch of stuff with the
00:19:42.220fv you know let's talk about the fv stuff sure he had a whole bunch of stuff um but it was interesting
00:19:47.260that he said you know though there were certain people in that fb movement he said that we're
00:19:53.820really um pursuing something good and right so i thought that was fascinating it's still
00:20:00.640you know it's still the third rail right now and or at least was i don't know where really
00:20:05.960the conversation lies at the moment but it was very clear to me what do you what do you mean
00:20:10.880the third rail oh the third rail means like like a it's like a lightning rod it's like you touch
00:20:15.820you're right right right it's the dirty word you can throw out there right you know um it would be0.91
00:20:21.340like saying hey all baptists are trans oh you guys oh you guys if you go first you're gonna go out
00:20:28.280feed that kind of thing right um but that was very interesting to me to go okay there was a
00:20:33.840on the covenantal level there was some um there were there are some clear differences between
00:20:41.380kind of a robust historic uh position and the way a lot of people are thinking about it now
00:20:48.220it was interesting like on on this would be an interesting point i was reading um uh it's john
00:20:54.980ball john i found john ball and john owen both talk this way um and you know i want to double
00:21:03.140check but almost positive say i'm 90 that they talk this way about cain being in the covenant
00:21:10.380of grace and you're like whoa okay right so you come from a uh from a reformed baptist position
00:21:19.280especially the 1689 federalist position it's going to talk about the covenant of grace revealed and
00:21:23.420inaugurated right not administered not administered in the old and not administered in abraham
00:21:28.700but then you find these these older presbyterians and i side note you find a lot of nuance in the
00:21:37.480covenantal conversation if you go back and look at the kind of original covenant theologians
00:21:42.520and you find you find more nuance back then than you do now and if you start to talk with nuance
00:21:49.960now and like in our context you can get in big trouble in a hurry like it's a very tense kind
00:21:56.160of conversation people are quick to say you know that you're going to be heretic or you're moving
00:22:01.040toward heresy and i find when i read the older stuff no the guys are articulating it different
00:22:05.540Wex. Nevertheless, that idea that Cain himself was in the Covenant of Grace,
00:22:11.280signaling that not only was the Covenant of Grace revealed back there in Genesis 3.15,
00:22:19.860not only revealed to Adam, but it was actually made with Adam, such that you had the physical
00:22:25.720church. I think I read Owen recently saying, like, before Cain's rebellion was the time when
00:22:31.620the church was truly catholic or truly visible and saying that every like all of humanity was in
00:22:37.660it you're saying john owen said that yeah and that's a pretty fascinating idea just finding
00:22:44.240any way to talk and think like whoa i mean so the whole all humanity was in the church you know
00:22:49.760before cain and then cain's uh exile is a further exile uh so it's a proto excommunication kind of
00:22:57.180that's what's going on with him like the line of like genesis chapter 10 the line of seth and the
00:23:01.900line of king city of man going off and this separate shoot yeah yeah um yeah you got an
00:23:10.360interesting connection there i'm just thinking about his further exile when he wanders the earth
00:23:13.740would be the example of him being exiled from the covenant community um so at any rate that's
00:23:20.700that's some of the interesting thinking that's going on okay i'm there's historic ways of
00:23:26.560thinking about this that's not just saying um that everything started with abraham um and so
00:23:34.440you're you're going to find some differences going on there that are going to inform the way that
00:23:38.440people are thinking about culture the way that people think about various things right i i
00:23:44.980remember having a conversation with ad robles about federal vision stuff and kind of going back
00:23:50.620a little bit five minutes in our conversation like i think you know both of us were able to
00:23:55.500recognize he wouldn't adhere to federal vision. As far as I can tell, I can't, you know, even if I
00:24:00.920wanted to, which I don't, but consistently as a Baptist, but we both were able to recognize,
00:24:06.800I think that like what you said is true, the good intentions, it seems like, and it kind of goes
00:24:11.380back to the whole Baptists are trans, but what we meant was American Baptists and individualism and
00:24:16.220those kinds of things. It seems like, you know, what a lot of these guys were trying to do, for
00:24:20.580one, there's a spectrum within the federal vision guys, you know, Peter Lightheart and Doug wouldn't
00:24:25.040wouldn't see eye to eye on exactly on some of those things. But, um, but it seems like it was
00:24:29.500trying to set up a hedge of protection against a bunch of people who had no assurance of salvation
00:24:33.700that America had become American Christianity had become so in your, you know, your own internal
00:24:42.120identity and, and how much sincerity did I have and the size of our faith rather than the object
00:24:48.400of our faith and personal decision, decisionism, revivalism, these kinds of things and atomistic,
00:24:54.340you know, and, um, such a, um, just no, no view of covenant that I, it was kind of like trying
00:25:01.860to set up some kind of metric, um, for helping people to not spend their entire Christian life
00:25:07.840thinking that they were going to hell. Like there's, there's a standard, there's a metric
00:25:11.540for determining, um, do I belong to Christ or do I know, you know? And, um, and so I think a lot of
00:25:18.060it was, you know, and so I find myself not using the same standards, but I find myself often as a
00:25:25.120Baptist, you know, 1689 pastor. I mean, the bulk I feel like of pastoral counsel is in the realm of
00:25:31.780assurance of salvation. Like at some ways, shape or form, that's what it just about always comes to
00:25:36.900is, you know, wanting to assure a person rightly that they actually have union with Christ and
00:25:46.600that they're doubting that and shoring them up in the gospel, um, to then motivate them in
00:25:52.260repentance and in obedience. And so, um, so to be able to say like, here are some, some objective
00:25:59.420outward, not just inward subjective feelings, but outward signs and seals that a person actually
00:26:06.540belongs to Christ. I think that was a lot of the incentive that I've been able in the little
00:26:11.420brief study and that I've done with looking back on some of the federal vision stuff. I think
00:26:16.540it's, it's likened to that debate with, you know, Doug Wilson and James White, you know, over a Roman
00:26:22.780Catholic baptism. It's just trying to say like, you know, um, does it, does, does the legitimacy,
00:26:29.880the validity of a baptism rest on, on, on that church's faithfulness to the gospel and its
00:26:36.900preaching of the gospel? Uh, the, you know, I mean, because there are, you know, and it's ironically
00:26:42.800Catholics do this, but like there, there have been huge moments in church history where, um,0.99
00:26:48.900an entire, you know, an entire sector of individuals all of a sudden, uh, lose every
00:26:54.140ounce of assurance because this priest baptized this person and this person and this person,
00:26:59.060and then ordained this other priest and he baptized this person. But it turns out that
00:27:03.060this priest, when he was first ordained, you work up the chain. And when this guy, uh, was first
00:27:08.580ordained, they didn't say the words right in his ordination and they missed, missed a word. And so
00:27:12.820his ordination is not valid, which means everyone that he ordained is not, uh, have a valid ordination
00:27:17.980and everyone they baptize therefore does not have a, like, and it, you know, you know, and so trying
00:27:22.880to like how, how much of the legitimacy of, of our baptism and more importantly, our faith, uh,
00:27:29.520have to do with, um, with sincerity and some of these inward things versus these outward objective,
00:27:35.820uh signs and seals um and i feel like that's what it was they were trying to accomplish
00:27:42.120there's a lot of a lack of assurance going on um in the evangelical church today you have some of
00:27:47.640that you have presumption too so you have both of the things operating but the um the the lack
00:27:54.020of assurance thing is a problem and it's interestingly connected to the individualism
00:27:57.340conversation because the what is a person doing that's that's lacking assurance say uh without
00:28:03.160without warrant like they're just it's not like this person is involved in grievous sin
00:28:07.560um but say this person's just thinking you know how can i know that i know that i know
00:28:12.640um i remember hearing like so john piper back in the day say you know don't look in like you can't
00:28:18.540don't there's no center to that onion memory of this great line that's and that's true yeah i
00:28:23.780think it's rutherford for every one look to self take 10 looks to christ so you have you have some
00:28:29.100of that going on but with the with the lack of assurance it's um well it's just kind of me it's
00:28:36.520just i need to i need to look entirely to myself um and it's a it's a selfie kind of thing well
00:28:42.880no you need to look to god and then you need to love the brothers right um right it is it's by
00:28:49.820your fruit you don't know them um so but that's that's a corporate thing like who are my brothers
00:28:56.200Well, love them, care for them. And there's going to be evidence in that. And this is where the covenantal idea comes in again, where we know, all right, I know who my brothers are and I'm going to, I'm going to love them. I'm going to serve them. And as I do, that's going to, that's going to bear fruit.
00:29:13.600I mentioned this in my follow-up to the cross-politic episode, that I find this happening with all of the social justice stuff.
00:29:26.220So you have these intersectional, you not only have intersectional victim identities, they're intersectional corporate victim identities, right?
00:29:38.100so it's not just something that a person's claiming like i am white or i'm black white's
00:29:42.980not a not one of the victim categories of course i'm black i'm i'm uh whatever lady female gay0.97
00:29:51.100all of that but you're when you buy into one of them trans bad you're bad is trans0.80
00:29:57.060that's a victim category now there are the oppressors that's right absolutely0.95
00:30:06.200Yes. I remember suffering repression. I remember. I still have that memory.
00:30:18.280When somebody claims one of these, my point is they're actually buying into the corporate deal.
00:30:25.560And I think that this is because people are, I wrote something like they're lonely, isolationist, individual expressionists.
00:30:34.400and they want a community they want like a visible community a corporate identity and the
00:30:40.900beauty is we have all of that we covenant christians christians are thinking covenantally
00:30:46.060have that you say well there's your brother um there he's baptized in the triune name and he's
00:30:50.880at the lord's table with you he's in your church like there he is and you have this you have this
00:30:56.540clear line drawn and you you are a part of these people now and i that will help um with the
00:31:04.060person like they don't just have to it's not just a matter of personal soul searching within one's
00:31:08.660own own life look at your fruit you know test yourself to see if you're in the faith amen um
00:31:14.800look at look at the works you're doing but then look around at the brothers and sisters that
00:31:18.720you're with these are your covenant people are you with the covenant people yeah you're with
00:31:22.820the covenant people um and that that corporate identity thing will would leave no room for these
00:31:30.060ridiculous victim identity statuses we put all of the the ones that are real would be put in their
00:31:35.780appropriate place like you your ethnicity is a real kind of thing the ones that don't even exist0.96
00:31:41.880like being trans is not even a thing and it would eradicate those as well as we recover the0.97
00:31:49.140covenantal idea yeah agreed let's talk for a little bit about so you know this is my suspicion
00:31:57.300and I'm sure I'm wrong at some level, but it doesn't seem like you switched over solely because
00:32:04.760you wanted to baptize babies. I think if I had to guess, I think you would say, okay,
00:32:12.300but the covenantal issue is foundational. It may not be the tip of the spear, but it's the bedrock.
00:32:22.620It's the foundational thing that gave me the framework theologically for all these other
00:32:26.500things. But what I'm saying is, um, it doesn't just seem like that's, that's the difference
00:32:31.120between, uh, where you have been in the past in your ministry and where you are now. Um, it seems
00:32:38.000like it's, it's not just baptism, it's theonomy, it's post-millennialism. So it's, it's eschatology.
00:32:43.760It's all these different things. For instance, like just looking at some of the problems in
00:32:47.860the church, I think you would, you know, I think you recently wrote a blog where you said, um,
00:32:52.200yeah, I don't think that the chief and only problem in the church is pragmatism. I think
00:32:59.060it's a lot deeper that like the, your rhetoric has changed and it hasn't just changed on
00:33:03.840to baptize or to not baptize babies. It's, you know, your view, it seems like you've always
00:33:10.680been a guy who believes in, you know, in the use of the law of God, not just as a mirror to reveal
00:33:15.960our need for Christ, but as a lamp unto our feet. But even that has changed in terms of,
00:33:20.680Okay, which laws? And the civil magistrate's obligation to, what obligation do they have?
00:33:28.440Is there this John Locke natural law or is it divine law? So all those kinds of things have
00:33:34.220changed. And I feel like there's a lot of Baptists like myself who are not persuaded of
00:33:39.600pedo-baptism. We're not persuaded of the Westminster view of the covenants, but we are
00:33:43.840very much persuaded that when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Lord raises up a standard
00:33:49.300against him like that we need um we need god's law we need um we need a better standard um and
00:33:58.060there's a lot of guys too who are like flooding in with post-millennialism i i talk to baptists
00:34:03.520all the time like so which one says which one says that we get to fight and says that we we
00:34:08.800have a chance at winning the fight yeah that i believe that one right and they haven't sorted
00:34:14.380out their view of the covenants yet they you know what i mean they haven't sorted out their view of
00:34:18.460baptism, but they're just like, yeah, like I love some of these 1689 Baptist guys, but a lot of them
00:34:25.020are not willing. And so it's like, we've got all these, it's weird, like, because, because it's on
00:34:30.040the Presbyterian side too. And I know you would say, well, that, that, that Presbyterians being
00:34:33.520inconsistent, you know, with, with their covenant theology, but we've got plenty of radical too.
00:34:38.280We've got Westminster Escondido. That's not Baptist. That's Presbyterian. We have pietist
00:34:43.200Presbyterians on the Baptist side. We've got some, some rough and tumble fighting post-millennial0.99
00:34:48.320Baptist. And, and, and maybe we're being inconsistent. But, but we've got some Baptists0.65
00:34:54.480who are willing to fight we've, and we've got some Presbyterians who are absolutely not willing0.51
00:34:58.640to fight. But then on the Baptist side, we also have like this growing, well, like, like this
00:35:05.260growing pietistic reform Baptist expression of, and it seems like if you like trying, if you could
00:35:13.260only ask one question and try to determine, is this, is this Baptist a theonomic post-millennial
00:35:17.980baptist or are they more of a pietistic uh baptist like uh you you can ask them what they
00:35:23.300think about thomas aquinas and get down isn't the kingdom of god amazing yes so wonderful
00:35:30.680yeah different rooms right you were very interesting path there though because you
00:35:37.080are right that covenant is the thing all right so the difference between baptist and and paedo
00:35:43.060is covenant it really like um that's the thing in attendant to covenant is are some of these
00:35:53.460other things like everyone in american evangelicalism now is working through
00:36:00.360issues of standard um you know so the aquinas thing is interestingly a part of that conversation
00:36:06.500um yeah it absolutely because it comes down to sola scriptura aquinas is saying like no we need
00:36:12.600this extra thing. We need Plato's metaphysics and these kinds of, and then you, you bring those
00:36:17.340things in and, and it's like, it's this, I, and I'm not smart enough to get all of it, but you,
00:36:21.600you work down the line and, and that's where you get kind of like your John Lockean natural law.
00:36:27.060That's, that's, that's, that's basically like the, the, the foolproof scotch of divine law,
00:36:34.280the 10 commandments, moral law, but watered down and you get this, whereas I would see natural law
00:36:39.740moral law is synonymous, all 10 commandments written on the heart of man, you know, but that,
00:36:45.220but that's, but it's the Aquinas, it's not even, my concern isn't doctrine of God. And that sounds
00:36:51.100horrible. I care about theology proper and doctrine of God, but I don't, my, my, my concern,
00:36:56.160because I would agree with the doctrine of simplicity and I would agree with the Thomist
00:37:00.180on, on some of these things in terms of ad intra, you know, extra in terms of how God knows himself.
00:37:07.220And I think, you know, we don't know what was in the mind of God 15 minutes before he created the world.
00:37:12.740But I, I would call myself loosely, you know, a classical theism is what I would prescribe to my doctrine of God.
00:37:19.900But these same guys, my concern is these same guys doing this with the doctrine of God also happen to be some of the same guys who, when I announced that I'm going to be doing a conference on postmillennialism and theonomy with James White and Dr. Boot and Gary DeMar, these guys were real upset with me about that.
00:37:35.820the guys yeah um well i don't want to chase the theonomy and the aquinas train too hard but
00:37:43.840i might i will touch on that but the point i was making is oh you're right you kind of pointed out
00:37:49.100that people are really working through the eschatology thing the law thing the the church
00:37:54.700and the world thing christendom kind of thing um and so you have there's a lot of guys that are
00:37:59.460baptists that are that are working through all that i would want to underscore that you have
00:38:03.260this historically yeah reading murray's uh the puritan hope and um you know praise god there's
00:38:11.040a way you know you can be baptist and post-millennial and um not be convinced of
00:38:16.660paedo-baptism and not be convinced of paedo-covenant theology um that's happened and
00:38:22.120happens now and so that's that's a thing people should i i think there's great there's a there's
00:38:28.240a lot of unity that's happening around people this is this is where i want to go and i signaled
00:38:32.560this in my follow-up to cross-politic there are baptists and pedo-baptists that are thinking
00:38:36.960covenantally um which is good different covenantally but they're both thinking covenantally
00:38:41.480there are baptist pedo-baptists that are thinking either post-millennially or some kind of optimistic
00:38:47.000amillennialism and i think that's that's really good as well there are baptists and pedo-baptists
00:38:52.520that are saying um we're not talking about taking the the um the old testament judicial law and
00:39:01.080dropping it in cold turkey in a modern state it ended that that old testament judicial law
00:39:07.600was abrogated and ended with that with its own uh israelite old covenant administration
00:39:12.680i've said that a bunch of times i think people know that at least where i stand on that i think
00:39:17.360on that what we're saying is that god's law um is actually to form into shape how do we do law now
00:39:25.240we're to pay attention to that and we're even to pay attention to that old testament judicial law
00:39:29.280and see the wisdom of God in it, and then apply it.
00:39:32.900I think there's a lot of, in that mix of the theonomic conversation,
00:39:40.200my buddy Timon Klein here is doing all kinds,
00:39:43.600I mean, just wrote a piece against public atheism.
00:39:46.980Klein has written publicly against theonomy,
00:39:50.220and then has advocated very strongly for saying, like,
00:39:53.880essentially the christian um the christian faith christianity revealed the faith once
00:40:00.120for all delivered to the saints must inform uh any any civilization that's going to be just right
00:40:05.840good true and beautiful like this is this is plain and simple so you have these everyone's
00:40:13.060discovering these kinds of things right now and you referred to my yes those kind of things were
00:40:19.960going on um you know and i didn't i didn't see the connections that um i eventually saw but that
00:40:30.320was it's a very fascinating time to be in kind of reformed evangelical christendom right now
00:40:37.100given the cultural changes that are happening and the way people are starting to think about
00:40:42.420these things right and um i think there's a great amount of unity and i think that that will continue
00:40:48.700to be maintained and fostered, but I do find that you're going to have different approaches to
00:40:54.000dealing with the issue. Take the social justice stuff. I do think there are good and godly men
00:41:03.120that have checked the social justice stuff. They're not woke at all, but they're checking it
00:41:09.540mainly on individual rights and liberties principles. It's mainly the way that people
00:41:18.280are thinking about it and there's other people that are checking it um and saying well yes and
00:41:23.280amen to the fact that we are still individuals we're not denying that um but there's also um
00:41:29.760we're checking it more on the grounds of this is unjust there are corporate identities there's
00:41:37.000principles of restitution that kind of thing but we're checking this on the fact that you're either
00:41:42.020going to have um divine justice true justice or you're going to have man's justice social justice
00:41:49.540early justice they're cutting it along those lines and i think we need to we really need to
00:41:54.820move into that latter um part which is related to a number of the doctrines that you just mentioned
00:42:00.260yep i agree yeah just for our listeners when i say that i am theonomic that it's just like with
00:42:06.100any doctrine there's a wide spectrum of you know and i think people are bothered by the theonomy
00:42:11.300word, because they immediately equate a theonomist with somebody who is lockstep with Rush
00:42:19.640Duny, which by the way, I've been reading a lot of Rush Duny lately, and I think he's