God's Covenantal Promise (2)

Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. - Acts 2:38-39.

In the last issue I pointed out that this passage was Peter's application of his Pentecostal sermon to a people in whose heart God had worked sorrow for sin.

I pointed out further that, because these people were Jews and proselytes, they were a covenant-conscious people, trained from infancy to think in terms of believers and their seed. Peter's language was not foreign language to them.

And finally I discussed how that Peter tells them that repentance is the way to forgiveness of sins - even the sin of crucifying the Christ.

We must proceed with our discussion.

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Along with the command to repent, Peter also told them that they had to be baptized. This too calls for a few remarks.

In the first place, these Jews were not unacquainted with baptism. Various washings in the OT times had accustomed the people to thinking in terms of washing as symbolic of cleansing from sin. And John the Baptist had made not only repentance the heart of his ministry, but had also baptized.

I can add in something of a parenthesis that, while the Jews questioned John's authority to preach, they never gave any indication of surprise or lack of understanding that he baptized. It was almost as if it was to be expected that he would also baptize. Baptism was, in other words, nothing foreign to these Jews.

In the second place, we must observe that these repentant Jews had to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. This must have come as something of a shock. They had to be baptized in the name of the very One Whom they had killed on the gibbet.

But the meaning was obvious - as Peter explained in His sermon. The One Whom they had crucified had actually accomplished the mighty work of crushing the serpent's head, destroying the power of sin by His own suffering, and accomplishing the salvation so long spoken of in the old dispensation.

To be baptized, therefore, in the name of Jesus Christ was to be forgiven, i.e., to have one's sins washed away in Christ' blood.

And finally, these Jews were to be baptized themselves, but were also to have their children baptized - right then! So they also understood him.

Baptists will, of course, dispute this. But the text is clear enough. The reason why baptism was necessary was because the promise belonged to them and their children. It would be utter nonsense for Peter to say: "The promise is for you and your children, and this is the reason why you alone, but not your children, must be baptized." The only way in which the promise for them and their children could be a reason for baptism is that baptism was also for them and their children.

I say again: this was not strange thinking to these Jews. The promise in the OT was for them and their children (see Gen. 17:7). Because the promise was for them and their children in the OT, they and their children had to be circumcised. Now too the promise is to them and their children. And so now, as then in ages gone by, they and their children had to be baptized.

The words of Peter were incapable of being understood by these Jews in any other way.

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Hence the reason for repentance and baptism is the fact that God's promise is to believers and their seed.

And to this beautiful idea we must now turn.

We ought to ask, first of all, what is God's promise?

I can think of no better and clearer discussion of God's promise than that found in Heb. 6:13-20. I cannot quote the entire passage here, nor enter into the text in detail. But a few points are worth noting.

In the first place, the text in Hebrews discusses the promise of God from a formal point of view.

In doing this, the text identifies the promise with an oath. Men swear oaths too. When they swear an oath, such an oath is the end of all dispute (vs. 16). It is the end of dispute because a man who swears an oath calls on God, One higher than himself, to witness what he says and to verify the truth of what he says. A man says, in essence, let God strike me dead if I lie.

God swears an oath as well. But He cannot swear by anyone higher than Himself, for He is the highest. And so He swears by Himself, saying in effect that the truth of what He says is rooted in His own eternal existence. It is as certain as He is God. If what He says is not true, then there is no God; atheism is the only other alternative.

But again, our space is taken up. Please keep this issue in a handy place so that you may consult it after receiving our next issues. Prof. H. Hanko