Of the Cross and Images

A recent inquirer asked:

I have seen some people praying while kneeling before the image of the cross in the church. Is this a practice of disobeying the Second Commandment?

My answer follows:

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church is committed to what is known as the regulative principle of worship. It is summarized in the following statement from the Westminster Confession of Faith (Chapter 21, Section 1), to which the OPC subscribes:

"The acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshiped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture."

We believe that this is a proper interpretation of the second commandment:

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments" (Exodus 20:4-6).

The second commandment clearly forbids the worshiping of God by images, or any other way not appointed in his word.

Further, the Confession of Faith also states (Chapter 21, Section 6):

"Neither prayer, nor any other part of religious worship, is now, under the gospel, either tied unto, or made more acceptable by any place in which it is performed, or towards which it is directed: but God is to be worshiped everywhere, in spirit and truth; as, in private families daily, and in secret, each one by himself; so, more solemnly in the public assemblies, which are not carelessly or willfully to be neglected, or forsaken, when God, by his Word or providence, calleth thereunto."

Praying is neither tied to nor made more acceptable at the foot of the image of a cross. In fact, as summarized in the second commandment, to make worship depend on such an image is superstition and idolatry.

Surely, the death of Christ on the cross is an historical reality with deep theological and religious meaning. The Word of God certainly teaches that the Lord Jesus Christ has saved His people from their sin by His death on the cross, wherein He bore the curse due to them that they might be blessed.

Thus, the apostle Paul says the word of the cross is "the power of God and the wisdom of God" (I Corinthians 1:24, cf. I Cor. 1:18); and he was determined to preach "Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (I Corinthians 2:2).

Further, as Christians we are commanded to take up our cross and follow Jesus (Matthew 10:38 and 16:24), which means a life of humility and suffering service and of denying oneself in submission to the will of God.

Nevertheless, the Scriptures nowhere teach us to erect the symbol of a cross as an aid to prayer or as a help to worshiping God. Thus, we should not make a cross as an object of worship or even as a means of worship, and we certainly should not bow down to such a graven image.

Blessings,

R. Daniel Knox

　

Of the Ones That Got Away and of the Perseverance of the Saints

OF TROUT: It dawned on me today that some of my most memorable trout are the ones that got away. Specifically, three fish hooked on three different streams come to mind. The first may well be the most memorable of all.

It all began back in the 1950s when I was a toddler and my dad, unbeknownst to me, had taken a fly tying course at the local YMCA from George Harvey, the premiere Penn State fly fishing authority. But Dad quickly thereafter abandoned the craft for other kinds of fishing. For some reason, however, he kept his fly tying vice and thread and hooks, mostly unused, and a copy of Harvey's A Simplified Course in Fly Tying, stashed away in an old black suitcase. Years later as a child I discovered that case and would from time to time pull it out and ponder someday taking up fly tying and fly fishing. And I can still remember at about the age of ten the absolute excitement of picking out and buying with my own money my first fly rod, a seven-foot Eagle Claw, at the old Ace Auto store in downtown Washington, PA.

Well, finally that day came when I tackled my first clumsy attempts at tying a fly--a cork bass popper. At least it stuck to the hook and with a little green paint and deer hair legs it kind of looked like a frog. I can't recall ever catching anything on it, but I was hooked.

Number 1: The first memorable trout that got away came some years later on a tiny cork bug that I had duplicated on Dad's vice from an issue of Outdoor Life. Perhaps it wasn't fly tying in the classic sense with feathers and all, but it was fairly simple and the pictures of the fellow having a field day on the trout of Pennsylvania was good enough for me. I tied up a handful and waited eagerly for the day when I could actually try them out. I shall never forget the day that Dad took me to Dunbar Creek, and standing on the shore and flipping that cork bug into the middle of a deep still pool, and having the most extraordinary sensation of watching that trout, well over a foot long, come out of nowhere to rise and suck in that bug. And then to feverishly raise my rod tip and know it was hooked--the fight was on. After several minutes I had worked the trout to the edge of the stream, ready to lift him out, and swoosh....he was gone.

Number 2: Fishing for the first time in Colorado on a family vacation, wading in the Arkansas River upstream from Salida. My son-in-law for several days had been having a terrific time with his spinning rod catching and releasing brown trout of immense proportions, in my humble estimation. Did I tell you that I have never really been a very good fisherman? Well, let's just say I had not caught a one in the Arkansas. This was fly fishing a major trout river, a first for me, and I was obviously having trouble picking the right fly and fishing it in the right way. I was at least a little disappointed. I decided to tie on a Mickey Finn, a brightly colored streamer, casted it upstream and drifted it down in the edge of a deep current. And bam, a take! After several breathless minutes of the fight I finally saw this enormous brown trout ripping through the water with my fly in its mouth. Upstream, downstream, upstream! Around my feet, then gone again. Time and again I sought to get the net in just the right position. So close, then, with a final tug, the line went limp and the trout disappeared into the deep.

Number 3: Again fishing with my son-in-law--this time we were fishing in southwest North Carolina on Big Snowbird Creek, a nice size stream, but the water was running high and murky from recent rains. Neither of us were having much success, but I was glued to a particular deep hole that had several pockets, runs, submerged logs and boulders. Surely there had to be a trout lurking somewhere. Cast after cast--nothing, not even the slightest strike. I had to have been there nearly a couple of hours but who is counting time when you're fishing. This angle and that--nothing.

Finally, I cast across the current to the far bank where the exposed roots of a tree jutted out into a swirl that paused only a second or two before swept away in a rush. The current would pull the line away quickly, so it was only possible to drop the fly in the swirl in the hopes of enticing a trout that might have been taking refuge under the bank under the roots. It worked. The Black-nosed Dace hit the water, sunk a few inches, and swoosh--out rushed the trout, grabbed the fly, and immediately sought to retreat to his lair. Somehow I was able to bring him out into the current where the combination of the force of the water and the strength of a nice-sized fish again made the landing difficult. It went on for several minutes. But once again, alas, he was gone and so was the flex of the fly rod. It was over. I could only lean back against a larger boulder and sigh. Unbeknownst to me my son-in-law from behind had witnessed most of the ordeal.

The ones that got away. Did I really catch them? Well, yes and no. In the end, they got away. So near and yet so far....Well, enough about trout. What about men?

OF MEN: An inquirer recently asked: Does the OPC believe that one can lose his salvation once he has accepted Christ as his savior?

My answer follows:

Your question relates to the doctrine of "the perseverance of the saints." The OPC believes in the perseverance of the saints, which teaches that true saving faith perseveres unto eternal life. A person who has received eternal life does not lose it. In this regard, the OPC accepts the Westminster Confession of Faith (http://opc.org/wcf.html) as a faithful summary of what the Scripture teach on this important doctrine. Indeed an entire chapter is devoted to this very matter as follows:

WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH

CHAPTER 17
Of the Perseverance of the Saints

1. They, whom God hath accepted in his Beloved, effectually called, and sanctified by his Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.

2. This perseverance of the saints depends not upon their own free will, but upon the immutability of the decree of election, flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father; upon the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ, the abiding of the Spirit, and of the seed of God within them, and the nature of the covenant of grace: from all which ariseth also the certainty and infallibility thereof.

3. Nevertheless, they may, through the temptations of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins; and, for a time, continue therein: whereby they incur God's displeasure, and grieve his Holy Spirit, come to be deprived of some measure of their graces and comforts, have their hearts hardened, and their consciences wounded; hurt and scandalize others, and bring temporal judgments upon themselves.

In scriptural terms, we can think of the prayer that Jesus says He prayed for Peter, when Satan sought to ‘sift him like wheat’ (Luke 22:31). Jesus says, however, “but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:32). Jesus obviously knows that Peter’s faith will not fail, for He knows that Peter shall turn again, even after his sorrowful three-fold denial, to prove himself as a faithful apostle. Yes, true Christians sometimes stumble, even fall into grievous sins; but they shall not finally and eternally fall away.

True faith, saving faith, is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8). The Westminster Shorter Catechism (http://opc.org/sc.html) says, “Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel” (Answer to Question 86). He who believes in Christ has eternal life (John 6:47). Jesus will lose none of those whom the Father has given to Him (compare John 6:37 with John 6:39). No one can snatch the true sheep of the Good Shepherd out of His hand (John 10:28). “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish” (John 10:27-28). True believers “are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (I Peter 1:5).

Still, we must recognize that not all who profess faith necessarily have true saving faith. The true, God-given faith perseveres to the end. But in the gospel of John, we read of folks who ‘believed’ in Christ, who eventually turned away from Him. That is, they believed He was a good teacher. They believed He could do miracles. They even believed to the extent that they wanted to make Him their earthly king John 6:15). But we read of some of those very followers of Christ (‘disciples’) who “withdrew, and were not walking with Him anymore” (John 6:66). They withdrew because they could not accept Jesus as the ‘true food’…‘the bread that came down out of heaven’ (John 6:53-58). Amazingly, this was just a short time after they had witnessed the feeding of the 5000 that they stopped following Him. And it is in that same context that Jesus speaks to the twelve, saying that He had chosen them, yet He knew that one of them was a devil (John 6:70).

Jesus knew whom He had chosen; He knew one would betray Him. We do not know God’s secret decrees, “For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him” (John 6:64). We cannot look into men’s hearts as Jesus the Son of God could. So it is that wolves sometimes disguise themselves as sheep and make their way into the church. Members are received into the church on their testimony and the credibility of their walk in keeping with those words. Elders should exercise great care in receiving members, but even so, they cannot be infallibly sure that true saving faith is at work in a person’s heart. Sometimes, those who seem to have faith, fall away and are lost, proving that their ‘faith’ was not real saving faith after all and that they were never really saved.

This is a most sobering and humbling truth. May God’s grace comfort and encourage you according to that true faith that looks to Jesus Christ alone for salvation from sin and Satan and death.

To God be the glory,

In Christ,

R. Daniel Knox, Pastor
Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Sewickley, PA

Of Illegal Aliens and the Church

A recent inquirer to the webmaster of http://www.opc.org/ recently asked the following question regarding the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the issue of illegal aliens:

Does our denomination support amnesty for illegal immigrants? This would possibly include government funded health care & education. I certainly hope not! We have enough unemployed Americans here without jobs now. We don't need to encourage illegal immigration to take those jobs.

Here are my comments:

The 73rd General Assembly of the OPC (2006) responded to an overture from the Presbytery of Southern California seeking advice for "presbyteries and sessions regarding the reception of illegal aliens into membership in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church."

The 73rd General Assembly responded "by electing a committee of three, and one alternate, to study the issue regarding the reception of illegal aliens into membership in the OPC and to propose to the 74th General Assembly advice for presbyteries and sessions" (Minutes of the Seventy-Fourth General Assembly, item 93.). That committee did, in fact, present a study report to the 74th General Assembly (2007) which can be seen in the Appendix, pages 334-367 of the Minutes of the Seventy-Fourth General Assembly. This document can be viewed online at http://opc.org/GA/aliens.pdf.

In the report, the Committee argued:

Can an illegal alien, then, honestly promise to obey Christ when he knows that he will continue intentionally or perhaps unintentionally to break the third, fifth, eighth, and ninth commandments? We believe a credible profession of faith requires that the illegal alien seeking church membership should be willing to repent of these sins as he comes to understand them in the light of God's Word and through the ministry of the pastor/evangelist and the elders. What does this mean for the illegal alien? We believe that the illegal alien, out of a desire to serve the Lord with all that is in him, should honor the government by attempting to remedy his unlawful immigration status.

Committee members, however, offered differing views as to what steps should be taken to remedy one's immigration status prior to reception into church membership.

You must understand that study reports that come to the General Assembly in the OPC do not bear constitutional status. They are in the realm of pastoral advice. The OPC has historically, on principle, understood the church’s power in terms of the definition of the Westminster Confession of Faith. Chapter XXXI (“Of Synods and Councils”), Section 4, states the following:
Synods and councils are to handle, or conclude nothing, but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary; or, by way of advice, for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate.

Thus it is that the OPC, as a church denomination, has not spoken on the issue you raise. The responsibility for doing justly belongs to the courts of the church (sessions, presbyteries, and the general assembly) on a case by case basis in keeping with our constitutional standards—-the Scriptures (our primary standard), the Confession of Faith, and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms.

We are well aware that many denominations in America have gone the direction of attempting to speak authoritatively on the many issues that come before the state. We are also aware that the National Association of Evangelicals has recently adopted a Resolution calling for immigration reform in the US and that several churches, including the Christian Reformed Church, have endorsed that resolution. The OPC, however, on principle, is not a member of the NAE and has not endorsed their Resolution or otherwise made any official statement. The study report presented to the 74th G.A. is offered solely as a help.

May God bless you richly.

In Christ,

Dan

Of the OPC, PCUSA, and EPC: How Do They Differ?

An inquirer asked:

Do you have any information on specifically what ways the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) differs with the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC)?

This is a most timely question. To begin my answer, here is a quotation from a helpful online publication at the OPC website (http://www.opc.org), entitled "What is the Orthodox Presbyterian Church?" (http://opc.org/whatis.html#I). You may want to read it in its entirety.

"During the nineteenth century, the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. was largely a strong and faithful church. But liberalism began to creep in from Europe, and little was done to check its spread. In 1924 about 1,300 (out of 10,000) Presbyterian ministers signed the liberal Auburn Affirmation, which denied that the Bible was without error and declared that belief in such essential doctrines as Christ's substitutionary atonement and his bodily resurrection should not be made "tests for ordination or for good standing in our church." Unbelief was taking over the church.

"Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey, remained a bastion of Presbyterian orthodoxy. But in 1929 its Board was reorganized with a mandate to put liberal professors on the faculty. Four Princeton professors resigned and (with the support of others) established Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia as an independent institution to continue teaching biblical Christianity.

"The leading opponent of liberalism in those days was J. Gresham Machen, a Presbyterian minister and professor at Princeton (and later Westminster). When he exposed the modernist unbelief that permeated the foreign missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., the General Assembly in 1933 refused to do anything about it. Because he and others would only support missionaries who were actually preaching the gospel, they established the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions. The 1934 Assembly condemned their action, and they were soon deposed from office. In response, 34 ministers, 17 ruling elders, and 79 laymen met in Philadelphia on June 11, 1936, to constitute the Presbyterian Church of America. (Because of a lawsuit brought by the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., the name of the new church was changed to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1939.) They wanted to "continue the true spiritual succession of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A." They hoped that a mass exodus of Bible-believing Christians would swell the ranks of the new denomination, but it never happened. Then, on January 1, 1937, Machen's untimely death dealt a severe blow to the new church."

Since its beginning, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church has been committed with integrity to the Scriptures as the inspired, infallible Word of God. Counting the cost of standing for truth, we are persuaded that the Word of God is without error and that the teaching of Scripture is not bound by cultural limitations. We wholeheartedly subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechism in its entirety. Ministers and elders are required to subscribe to those documents and to uphold their teachings.

This in itself is a radical difference from the PCUSA where the Westminster Confession and catechisms are more looked upon as historical documents that summarize what the church USED TO BELIEVE. Ministers and elders in the PCUSA are not required to subscribe to those confessional statements. In fact, I myself experienced first hand in 1979-1981 in what was then the UPCUSA, the courts of the church upholding a minister who openly denied the deity of Christ and who would not affirm either the bodily resurrection of Christ or the blood atonement. That is what led me to join the OPC shortly thereafter. The PCUSA has condoned denials of the Biblical faith and disciplined those men like Dr. Machen and others who have sought to hold her accountable to the Word of God.

In the OPC we believe that the marks of the true church are the faithful preaching of the Word of God, the faithful administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, and the faithful administration of church discipline. In all things the Scriptures are the rule of faith and practice. Those who are delinquent in doctrine or life are subject to the discipline of the church.

While the Evangelical Presbyterian Church generally has a more biblically conservative bent than the PCUSA, the OPC differs from the Evangelical Presbyterian Church particularly in two matters.

First, we wholeheartedly affirm the teaching of the apostle Paul which forbids women teaching or having authority over men. Thus, we do not ordain women to the offices of minister, ruling elder, or deacon. The EPC does permit the ordination of women.

Second, the OPC is also united in its belief that the charismatic gifts such as prophecy and the speaking of tongues ceased with the end of the apostolic age. The EPC believes that those gifts continue into the present day. The OPC is persuaded that those gifts were specifically associated with the apostolic era while the Scriptures were still being written as signs of the authenticity of the apostles. Once the canon of Scripture was completed, those gifts ceased and the Scriptures alone are the sole, sufficient authority given by God for the instruction of His church. We confess, "The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men" (WCF I.6). And further we confess, "The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture" (WCF I.10).

While more could be said, I hope this is helpful.

May the Lord bless your continued pursuit of His truth.

In Christ,
R. Daniel Knox, Pastor
Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Sewickley, PA　

The Guide to Fishers of Men

I just caught on cable a few minutes of the Outdoor Channel program "Adventure Guides:Fishing Edition." The host is John Dietsch, the expert who taught Brad Pitt a bit of of fly fishing and then doubled for Pitt in the climactic fishing scene in "A River Runs Through It." Tonight's episode focused on fly fishing guides, who for a fee take their clients on the prime trout rivers of Colorado, teaching them to become fly fishers.

On this good Friday, I would rather speak of The Guide to Fishers of Men, Himself the Chief of Fishers, who said, "Come, follow Me; and I will make you fishers of men."

Is Jesus God? Are those who deny Christ's deity really Christians and should we fellowship with them in the church? Such questions were posed to me recently by an honest inquirer.

Here's my answer:

Your questions immediately bring to mind the book Christianity and Liberalism written by J. Gresham Machen in 1923.

As you may know, Machen was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1915-1929 and at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia from 1929-1937. He witnessed firsthand the effects of liberalism and a lack of church discipline that impacted the Presbyterian Church in the USA in those days. One of the issues that particularly drew his attention was the fact that the PCUSA was sending out missionaries who did not affirm the essential tenets of the Christian faith, like the deity of Christ.

In Christianity and Liberalism, as the title itself suggests, Machen argued that Christianity and liberalism were in fact different religions. As you suggest, Christianity without the Christ who is the eternal Son of the Father, the great "I am" who existed before Abraham, the Word of God by whom and through whom all things were created and who became flesh in the fullness of time, is simply a contradiction in terms.

Machen’s stand against liberalism eventually led to a separation and to the formation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1936. Machen and others refused to accommodate themselves to those who denied Christ. Machen himself was defrocked by the PCUSA for his refusal to support the liberal agenda, but his courage and willingness to suffer loss for the sake of Christ has been an encouragement to many others to stand faithfully for Christ. The OPC has understood her calling to “to go to (Jesus) outside the camp and bear the reproach He endured” (Hebrews 13:13).

True Christianity affirms Jesus as the King of kings, the Lord of lords, who was and is and ever more shall be and to whom all authority in heaven and on earth has been given. He the Lord's Anointed, the Prophet, Priest, and King to whom the whole of Scripture points. He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He has returned to the glory that He had with the Father before the world began. He powerfully and effectively loved the Church and gave Himself up for her that she might be saved and share in His glory. He has been raised in resurrection body to ascend to heaven at the right hand of the Father.

The Westminster Confession of Faith, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church’s official statement of faith, speaks to your question regarding the deity of Christ in chapter IX, “Of Christ the Mediator,” especially in sections 2 and 3 which read as follows:

2. The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon him man's nature, with all the essential properties, and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin; being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God, and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man.
3. The Lord Jesus, in his human nature thus united to the divine, was sanctified, and anointed with the Holy Spirit, above measure, having in him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; in whom it pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell; to the end that, being holy, harmless, undefiled, and full of grace and truth, he might be thoroughly furnished to execute the office of a mediator, and surety. Which office he took not unto himself, but was thereunto called by his Father, who put all power and judgment into his hand, and gave him commandment to execute the same.

Remember the strong instruction and exhortation of the short epistle of II John, especially verses 7-11 which says,

"For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.”

As the apostle Paul writes in II Corinthians 6: 14-15, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?” This passage speaks to church membership and to marriage. Believers should be equally yoked, believers joined to believers. The cup and the bread we share at the Lord’s Supper testify that we are holily joined to the God-man Jesus Christ and to one another in Him. The church, holy and catholic (that is, worldwide), is His body, and the church is to be composed of those who believe in Him and their children. Those children are to be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

As Christians, then, in love, we call men, women, and children everywhere to repent of their sin and rebellion and to embrace Jesus Christ with us, as He is so freely offered to us in the gospel. He is named Jesus, which means “Jehovah (or Yahweh) saves.” “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

Blessings to you in the name of the Resurrected Son of God,
Dan

Of the Waters of Infant Baptism

Let's begin by wading into the water, the water of infant baptism, in the hopes of catching 'little ones'. The water seems shallow enough, but many have slipped on slippery stones, even close to shore, and many 'little ones' have gotten away. Any successful trout fisherman will tell you, you must first learn to 'read the water' to learn the secrets that lie underneath the surface.

Yes, Roman Catholicism says that infants should be baptized in the church. And they believe that infants need to saved from sin and the power of the devil. But their misunderstanding of the sacraments makes salvation dependent upon the power in the sacraments themselves, failing to understand the sacraments as signs and seals of the covenant of grace. This is a crucial distinction and difference from the faith professed in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

In the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter XXVIII, paragraphs 1 and 4, we in the OPC affirm the following:

1. "Baptism is a sacrament of the new testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church; but also, to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life. Which sacrament is, by Christ's own appointment, to be continued in his church until the end of the world."

4. "Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one, or both, believing parents, are to be baptized."

Further, in Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 95, we confess the following:

Q. 95. "To whom is baptism to be administered?"
A. "Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church, till they profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him; but the infants of such as are members of the visible church are to be baptized."

Underlying the importance of baptism in the Reformed churches like the OPC is the whole biblical understanding of the covenant. In the old covenant, the sign and seal of circumcision pointed to the covenant made with Abraham and his descendants the Jews. God promised to be their God and for them to be His people; He would be their shield and their great reward. All males were to be given the sign and seal of the covenant, namely circumcision. The descendants of Abraham and those received into his house were to be circumcised. In Romans 4:11, Paul describes circumcision as a sign and seal of a faith and salvation, which Abraham already had by God's grace. To be sure, not everyone circumcised in the covenant community (Israel) was saved, but only those who had true saving faith. Still the sign and seal were to be applied to the many, including the infants, before they evidenced any faith or not.

We confess (WCF XXV.II.) that the visible church, which is ... catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children. The new covenant includes both Jews and Gentiles. The new covenant like the old includes the believers and their children and also includes both privilege and responsibility.

Baptism marks a person as a member of the covenant community (the church). But baptism, like circumcision, does not save. It does, however, stand as a sign and seal of the covenant, pointing both the parents and the child to the promises and the warnings, the privileges and the responsibilities of being included in the covenant in the church.

We believe baptism sets us apart from the world. Scripture says that the children of a believing parent(s) are holy (I Cor. 7).

The baptism of our children says to them that they belong not to themselves but to God in Christ. Therefore, they are continually reminded and called by their baptism to covenant faithfulness. Woe to that child who does not improve upon his baptism, who does not repent and believe. Like a Bethsaida or Jerusalem to whom the ministry of Christ had come, only to be rejected, how great will be the woe to come upon the child who does not respond to God's covenant faithfulness and His testimony of compassion and love in Christ.

In a certain sense, infant baptism epitomizes covenant grace. Like the child who cannot understand, who cannot say yes or no, the baptism of an infant points to the wonderful truth that our sovereign God saves the weak, the helpless. Again, I say, God speaks to us through baptism; it is, as it were, a sermon in picture (sign) and an awesome confirmation that binds us to the covenant (seal).

We acknowledge that the covenant sign and seal set before us both God's covenant blessing and curse, both promise and warning. The child included among those receiving the covenant privileges of the ministry of word, sacrament, and discipline are more than doubly accountable. Not only are they created and included in the original covenant with Adam, but they are privileged to be accounted among the people of God. Thus, their baptism continually beckons them to obedience and faith.

Baptism no more saves our children than circumcision saved an Esau, for example. Nevertheless, the sign of the covenant testifies to us and to our children of the new covenant. Baptism is not so much what we say to God as it is God's testimony to us. It says to us that it is God alone who saves, God alone who washes and sanctifies. It is the washing of the Spirit from above, the washing that comes through the blood of Christ, that saves us.

This will have to do this evening for a first lesson in 'reading the water', an essential in 'man-fishing'.