Our father in heaven, we read in thy word that the blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven, the one whose sins are covered. Yes, blessed is the one to whom the Lord does not impute sin. This is the word of the gospel. We thank thee that this gospel has come unto us, that even unto us who in times past were far off and were not not unto the people of thy covenant, we who indeed were not thy people. We thank thee that in thy rich mercy, in that the new covenant, the word of Christ, has gone forth unto the nations in the power of thy spirit, and that word has come into our lives and experience as it has been come down to the Church of all generations. We thank thee that that word has come to us indeed in demonstration of the spirit's power, so that our sinful hearts have been changed. Our deadness has been altered. We have come to life in Jesus Christ, and we have seen in him our Savior, the one by whom indeed our sins have been covered, the one unto whom our sins were imputed and his righteousness unto us. I wonder, so Lord, is this gospel? We rejoice in it. We thank thee that ever and again we may turn to thy word and be reminded of it and reassure it of its truth, and we pray that in our experience tonight that may be the case again. We thank thee for these weeks. We have had together. We pray that the fruit of our study of the Scripture might be unto our own building up in the faith and unto our improvement as we seek to minister thy word to others as we find them in this needy world round about us. Send us forth then as those who are the fishers of men, the those who go forth with the message of Christ and him crucified bless us. We pray thee in our own lives and make us a blessing to thy people for thy names sake we pray. All right, now let's see that the first thing I thought we might do just picking up where we ended up last time, which you may remember was with the discussion of the signs of membership in the corporation into the covenant, the Old Testament circumcision, and then we followed up with that with the comparison of the role of baptism, its meaning, its function and its application in the new, but you know, we went through that pretty fast. You didn't have any time for any questions or discussions I recall. I don't know if I should just open that up at this point for a four such discussion, but at least let me do this in bio the consigned, we're at the point where we are moving into a discussion of baptism and proceed to show how in terms of its symbolic meaning and its theological significance and terms of the principles of its application who should receive it, that baptism does correspond to what we find in circumcision. At that point, I deal with the transition that we find from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant where Christian baptism comes into play, that the transition is in terms then of the ministry of John, the four runner of our Lord who also is involved in a baptism. And what I tried to do is to take the significance of the John, the Baptist baptism and try to understand that in the light of his particular role at the end of the Mosaic economy. And then to see how our Lord himself was actually involved with John at that stage of things so that the baptism of John was actually being practiced by Jesus, although it says not Jesus, but his disciples did that kind of baptism baptizing. But Jesus himself was involved with this closing Old Covenant ministry of John and his baptism. And so I argue that surely then when our Lord institutes New Covenant baptism that there was bound to be some continuity in basic meaning between this New Testament baptism which our Lord instituted and that Joanna and Baptism which our Lord had been involved with in the early stage of his ministry. So that's what's going on here. And so the question is we were trying to make the point you will recall that in terms of the fundamental symbolism of both circumcision and baptism and function that what is being conveyed is the idea of the divine judgment, the judgment or deal. All of those who are entering into the covenant do so with the prospect and view of a day of accountability before the Lord of the covenant. And the right of entrance into the church for trays, that ultimate judgment or deal. And we of course went on to say that although the generic meaning that of both circumcision and baptism is that of death, it's circumcision is the sword of the Lord. Baptism is the floodwaters, the destructive waters of death. So generically, symbolically that's what is going on. And yet then we saw that that generic idea of judgment and death can be experienced in two specific ways. It can be experienced either in terms of a faith identification with Christ or apart from such. And if that final judgment which is symbolized in circumcision or baptism, if that final judgment is experienced by someone apart from having never made contact by faith and identification with Christ, then of course that death judgment is precisely and only what will be experienced. Nevertheless, the purpose of God, the proper purpose of the whole redemptive program, and therefore of the signs of the redemptive covenant, the proper purpose of God, of course, is that people should be saved and not condemned. And so the other specific meaning of these sort of rights is they're the one that they have in the experience of those who undergo that final judgment, that death experience, in Christ. And so that he has experienced the death for us. So we get into the ark instead of being outside the ark. We go through the floodwaters of judgment in the ark and thus we find safe passage through the wrath, judgment of God, through resurrection on the far side that we are baptized into Christ's death and so on by faith. We make that identification, then we will experience resurrection. And so there are these two specific outcomes that may follow the two different kinds of ultimate wrath, judgment, death that is to be undergone and we are all done under. Go that one way or the other. And so these are the two alternatives. And of course as I say, what you are being urged to do in connection with this reception of the circumcision or baptism, you're not just being acquainted with the fact that judgment are a waste but you are being urged, you are being invited in terms of the whole gospel with which these signs come to us. You are being urged and invited to identify, of course, my faith with Christ and to undergo baptism in the baptism of his death with which he was baptized and then of course the outcome. So that's what we are trying to establish here. But then the basic symbolic point is that these rights depict the judgment of God that comes upon those who have received this right. Of course it's going to, this judgment of God is going to be on those who are outside this situation altogether but nevertheless even those who are within the covenant are reminded here in a special way of the fact of this accountability day that faces all folks. Well in bio-consigned and let's see where I thought I might begin the update, about 51. Here we've been talking about the structure of these covenants and of course then there was the old covenant and we've seen that that was one of the works at its upper level and it is in terms of that old covenant, that arrangement which involved a national election of Israel to the enjoyment of a typological kingdom on the basis of the principle of works as the principle of tenure, how long they could hold onto that arrangement then was going on and Israel's enjoyment of the kingdom land that God bestowed upon them there was contingent upon it was based on their fidelity on their covenant keeping and of course at the point of the exile, Babylonian exile, they had transgressed their way past the point of God's continuing the covenant. So there is a rupture, there is a break, there is a discontinuity even already in Old Testament days within the ongoing old covenant and whereby Israel then is termed low on me, not my people anymore but then of course they are reinstituted, the whole program was an act of grace to get this whole arrangement going in the first place even though then its ongoing is dependent on works and then it was due to another act of grace that they are restored to the land but of course they are restored again under Moses, under the law, under the works principle and so this is where we are coming now, it's this final point where even after the restoration from Babylonian exile things are going on, the prophets of the previous days have been ignored, they have been rejected, they have been maltreated and so on, the word of the Lord faithfully or systematically sent to them has been despised and so the exile had to come and now there are new prophets, there is Hagia, there is Echariah, there is Malachi and so on and then they are presenting the word of the Lord still but still it is a matter of works and now we come to the end of that story and we come to John the last of these Old Testament prophets and this ministry of the prophets through this whole period is very much one of being God's lawyers conducting his lawsuit against the people, the historical books of the Old Testament are all devoted to the twin theme of God has been faithful to the covenant, Israel has been constantly breaking the covenant, that's what's going on all the way through the message of the prophets, that is what continued to go on and now we are at a final point where this old preliminary arrangement is going to be terminated, it's going to be terminated in judgment, this works arrangement is going to prove to fail in this matter of fact of course, now that's part of the whole purpose of God setting it up in the first place that by their failure the Israelite community and this is a message which the whole world can grab a hold of by recognizing what Israel did is what everyone else all of the rest of us would have done and so what this is teaching Israel and through Israel all the rest of us is the complete futility of our own efforts by our works to secure in the first place or to hang on to it anyway the ultimate blessings of God so that this works arrangement was one after all that was driving us to the cross it was driving us to Christ but that purpose had to work itself out and it works itself out in the fall of Israel and the collapse, the termination of that whole peculiar package of arrangements national election typological kingdom works principle that package which characterizes this whole old covenant era was about to be terminated and so God raises up John as the prophet of this last generation the prophet who stands right on the brink of that ordeal which circumcision had been pointing toward all this time the cutting off in death and here of course what this in view is this national election this corporate experience the this whole thing was going to be terminated and cut off and John stands there the acts is laid to the root of the trees you see as much as the ultimate circumcision is about to take the ultimate cutting right the acts laid to the root of the trees he warns him this old testament order is about to go down and so question is then you just to understand precisely the nature of John's role and function historical function at that point and all right the see right and pick this up in the area let me start at this point where I have a hitting where he's called the messenger of the ultimatum a messenger of the ultimatum in the lawsuit process there were two stages there would be the first stage when the prophets would come to the people and warn them that by breaking the covenant they have put themselves in peril and the first stage that was tantamounted to a call to repentance so while there was still time and your ways and ward off the inflection of the curses of the covenant extend the days of the blessing that was the first stage but then if the people ignore that first stage of the lawsuit then the lawsuit would move into it it's a second stage and the second stage then was the ultimatum stage where it's not so much now in expectation that there will be a proper response to the arrangement where it's pretty much announcing the doom is at hand and that's where John finds himself the precise relationship between the baptism administered by John the Forerunner and that of the Christian church well this I guess is what I tried to explain before either there's that continuity between them and so by understanding the significance of John's baptism I can go on to say what I just said to you we can understand more clearly the meaning of Christian baptism in order now however to see the mission of John the Forerunner in proper historical perspective it will be useful to review certain procedures followed in ancient covenant administration I just did that for you I discussed the lawsuit and how that worked if the messenger of the great king was rejected in prison especially if he was killed the legal process moved into that second phase this was the declaration of war as an execution of the sacred sanctions of the treaty and so on now the mission of the Old Testament prophets those messages of Yahweh to enforce the covenant mediated through Moses is surely to be understood within this judicial framework of the covenant lawsuit and so to the mission of John the Baptist John was sent with the word of ultimatum from the Lord to his covenant violating Vassal Israel was it not precisely this judicial process that Jesus had in mind when he interpreted the succession of divine messengers in the parable of the vineyard so we think here of the vineyard parable in Matthew 21 and which of course roots in Isaiah were actually there are two vineyard sections the one in chapter 5 and another in Isaiah 27 but we're all familiar with Jesus parable of the vineyard the servants of the parable were sent by the Lord of the vineyard to demand from him his do that's what the prophets had been doing all along that's what John as the ultimatum prophet is doing the Lord is the one to whom the tribute and devotion of the people for long and they had come asking that of the people but the husband then refudiated their obligations they handled the messengers the messengers are shamefully beat them stoned them sent them away empty till some of them now when Jesus told this parable he was thinking most immediately of the people's rejection of John the Baptist that the rejection of John was particularly in view and this parable is indicated by the location of the parable immediately after the record of Jesus counter challenge to the Jewish authorities who respect to the origin of John's baptism he had just been disputing with them and particularly he had raised this issue of the origin of John's baptism and then he tells the story about the vineyard and Jesus himself was of course the Lord of the vineyard's son who was cast out in slain because Israel had repudiated his lordship and despised his ultimatum God would inflict on them the vengeance of the covenant in fact Jesus as the final messenger of the covenant as we said Jesus is involved with John in this ministry Jesus at the early stage involved with John in this ministry even in the act of baptism and so Jesus is also then playing a role along with John in terms of this whole Old Testament economy so our Lord is not only then about to introduce the whole new covenant but also then he figures at this point in this final ultimatum through the Old Covenant community and then I have a paragraph where I try to show some reflections of ancient covenant lawsuit patterns in the words of Jesus here then to the same effect as Jesus parable of the vineyard in terms of interpreting the role of John had been Malachi's prophetic interpretation of the coming Lord and his forerunner so what was John's role? How is it cast by the prophetic word of Malachi Malachi too depicted the Lord and his forerunner as the bearer of ultimatum and final verdict from Malachi spoke of two messengers the one called my messenger the Lord's messenger and the other the messenger of the covenant of the first that is of my messenger Malachi wrote he shall prepare the way before me and again Malachi spoke of a coming of Elijah as a precursor of the great and terrible day of the Lord so this is the function of that coming forerunner that Elijah figure he stands there at the threshold of the great and terrible day of the Lord his mission was to be one of warning lust Israel's Lord smite them with a curse the curse of the Old Covenant for at his fiery advent the Lord would refine his people by judgment Malachi three two and following now what is narrated in the gospels concerning the ministry of John comports fully with the understanding of his role as that of the messenger of the covenant to declare the Lord's ultimatum of eschatological judgment the voice in the wilderness cried repentee for the kingdom of heaven is a hand it warned of the wrath to come it warned of the vanity of reliance on external earthly relationships even descend from Abraham if the trees did not bring forth satisfactory fruit if they were not properly circumcised on to the Lord then they must be cursed as a cumbrian to the ground and cut off the axe was even now laid on to the root to inflict this judgment of circumcision you see so John is expounding really the the meaning of their original circumcision here as something that was pointing to this final act of cutting off a judgment and now he says that that day of circumcision judgment the actually to the root see is that hand repent to hear and so he's addressing the community which is about to be doomed and of course he is he is offering to his baptism a word which calls to repentance unto the remission of sins so that out of this national catastrophe and fall the opportunity is given to the through remnant to enter into this baptism of John which symbolises this whole ministry he's engaged in and by entering into this baptism which points to the messianic suffering and baptism by entering into that baptism and identifying with the coming Christ though the remnant community could anticipate the judgment of God and in Christ escape from it whereas the rest who just pursued their rebellious way apart from this opportunity would experience this cutting off that was a threatened now one would expect that the baptism of John as the sign of such a mission of ultimatum would portray by its own symbolic form the threatened door deal of judgment and that concept of it that symbolism is not then always appreciated and it is related in order to discover its meaning to various washings and ceremonies of lustrations and so on of this kind and yet what I'm suggesting is that they are not the primary symbolism in terms of John's whole mission and his message here this particular right that condense that the whole thing must be conveying that idea of the judgment of God and well as further support for it then I argue that the idea of water is playing a role of an ordeal element in this ordeal element in a judgment of the gods as part of the common context of the extrabiblical world of the Old Testament as well and I think we probably when we were talking about Noah's arc and so on we said some of these things but in the Old Testament itself the symbolism of water is precisely in terms of these great acts of judgment for example the flood or the crossing of the sea or the crossing of the Jordan all of the high moments in the drama of Old Testament salvation and judgment involve this kind of water or a deal where they were in the flood then God judges the whole world by a water baptism and then as we noted Peter used the language of baptism to describe what went on in the flood that was a baptismal experience with the background of John's water baptism is certainly to be related then to these great episodes of baptism of judgment in the flood and then also as First Corinthians 10 points out the crossing of the Yom Suf the Red Sea at the Exodus was another baptismal thing where the Israelites were all baptized into Moses there and the sea and in the cloud and the destructive aspect of those baptismal waters was especially experienced by the Israelites who pursued by the Egyptians who pursued after them and were all perished whereas those who went over identified with Moses of course went through the baptism safely just as those baptized identified with Christ go through the judgment safely hear those who were baptized into Moses back there went through the experience safely but the experience itself symbolized by the waters was one of death and so on and again that they're crossing of the Jordan so that being the role of judgment of waters it's the high moments of previous history that it symbolized the divine judgment that that would certainly then point to the meaning of John's baptism along that line and that's the kind of thing I'm discussing in pages 55 and 56 and 57 the time had come when here in the Jordan River where once the Lord had declared through an ordeal that the Promised Land belonged to Israel he was requiring the Israelites to confess their forfeiture of the blessings of his kingdom and their liability to the wrath to come and so it was a word of threat and curse and death and yet John's proclamation was a preaching of good tidings to the people Luke 318 it was a preaching of good tidings because it invited the repentant to anticipate the Messianic judgment in a symbolic ordeal in the Jordan so securing for themselves beforehand a verdict of remission of sins against the coming judgment just as we by faith and Christ received a already a verdict of justification against the impending judgment to seal a holy remnant by baptism onto the Messianic kingdom was the proper purpose see this symbolizes death and that death experience can be experienced in themselves a death art can be experienced in the proper way by faith in the Messiah the Savior and then it will be on to life was the proper purpose of the bearer of the ultimatum of the great king further support for the interpretation of the baptismal right as a sign of worship right as a sign of ordeal is found in the biblical use of baptism the verb baptism of the noun these words are used to denote historic or deals I've already mentioned first Corinthians 10-2 using the crossing of the sea as a baptism in 1st Peter 3-21 the flood is this baptismal terminology is used for the ordeal well a particular relevance at this point is the fact that John the Baptist himself used the verb baptismal for the impending ordeal in which the one might hearth and he would wield his winnowing fork to separate from the covenant kingdom those who circumcision had by want of Abrahamic faith become uncircumcision and who must therefore be cut off from the congregation of Israel and devoted to unquenchable flames with reference to this judicially discriminating ordeal with its dual destinies of garner and ghihanna John declared he shall baptize you with the holy ghost and with fire so in this kind of expression clearly the meaning of baptism comes forth it is not primarily the idea of cleansing or washing it's the idea of this dramatic judgment that the he shall baptize you with the holy ghost and with fire and clearly the fires as that of a judgment well now John did more than describe the imminent messianic ordeal as an act of baptism the institute and explicit comparison between that baptismal ordeal which was to be executed by the coming one and his own that is John's own baptismal right John said I indeed baptize you with water he shall baptize you with the holy ghost and with fire he will baptize you in an act of judgment with its dual possibilities and anticipation of that symbolizing that I now baptize you with water but clearly then what he is telling us is that the meaning of his baptism is pointing to that act of messianic judgment and John called attention to the great difference his own baptism was only a symbol whereas the coming one would baptize men in an actual ordeal with the very elements of divine power and judgment but the significant fact at present is not that John's baptism was only a symbol but that according to his own exposition of it what John's baptism symbolized was the coming messianic judgment that certainly the force of his double use of baptize in this connection and then I go on to suggest you ever wonder if you have a problem with the fact that Jesus undergoes baptism and he's not a sinner what does he have to undergo but if you understand that the meaning of baptism is to come under the judgment of God then Jesus willingness to undertake this right is much more easily understood and it becomes an act of commitment on his part he enters into the situation commits himself to it to come under this judgment of God and in view of his whole role in history this is why he has come into the world of course to do precisely that and here he commits himself by baptism to the cross if you will. As covenant servant Jesus submitted in symbol here to the judgment of God the God of the covenant and the waters of baptism but for Jesus as the Lamb of God to submit to the symbol of judgment was to offer himself up to the curse of the covenant by his baptism Jesus was consecrating himself to his sacrificial death in the judicial ordeal of the cross and such an understanding of his baptism is reflected in Jesus' own reference to his coming passion as a baptism Jesus said I have a baptism to be baptized with and of course he's referring to the cross so this whole line of evidence seems to me to point so clearly and powerfully to the basic meaning of baptism as death that one wonder is why we for the most part miss that and then just reduce it to some washing surfaces there is a lot of money and the missed this whole central concept of judgment. So Jesus' symbolic baptism on to judgment appropriately concluded with a divine verdict the verdict of justification expressed by the heavenly voice and sealed by the spirits anointing and so forth. John the Baptist was sent as a messenger of the old covenant to its final generation his concern was not to prepare the world at large for the coming of Christ but to summon Israel until the Lord to whom they had sworn allegiance at Sinai to swear allegiance to him air his wrath broke out upon them and the Mosiah kingdom was terminated in the flames of messianic judgment.
John the Baptist in his call to baptism this baptism was not an ordinance to be observed by Israel in their generations the way circumcision had been but it was a special sign for that terminal generation epitomizing the particular crisis in covenant history represented by the mission of John as messenger of the Lord's ultimatum. From the angle of repentance and faith John's ultimatum could be seen as a gracious invitation to the marriage feast of the suzerain son and John's baptism as a seal of the remission of sins and right with promise in this regard with Jesus a mission to John's baptism for the passing of Jesus through the divine judgment in the water right in the Jordan meant to John's baptism what the passing of the Lord through the curse knife right of Genesis 15 remember we discussed that last time what that meant to Abraham circumcision in each case the divine action constituted an invitation to all recipients of these covenant signs of consecration to identify themselves by faith with the Lord himself in his passage through the ordeal and so they might be assured of emerging from the overwhelming curse with a blessing. Jesus passage through the water ordeal with the others who were baptized in the Jordan was also one in meaning with the Lord's presence with Israel and the often color crossing through the sea and so forth there's another illustration of that well all right so this was the meaning of John's baptismal sign that if it's in appropriately then with his whole distinctive function there at the end of the older. This is an economy when the day of the termination of that works arrangement was in view then the next chapter makes the transition and shows how Jesus was involved with what we were just talking about Jesus through his disciples participated in this baptismal ministry that the John was engaged with threatening Israel with destruction calling out a remnant to come. To Messiah undergo the judgment in him so one of the links between Christian and Joanna and baptism is the baptism which Jesus authorized and his disciples administered during the very period of John's preaching and baptizing and so I argue that there's got to be continuity in meaning between the later Christian baptism which our Lord institutes and this earlier baptism when Jesus began his public ministry. This lawsuit we were just talking about God's lawsuit with Israel was in that ultimatum stage when Jesus began his ministry. At this point the judicial function of Jesus coincided with that of John. Jesus witnessed the effect of confirming John's witness of final warning to Israel especially to Israel's officialdom in the Judean area and since the meaning of the baptismal right administered by these messages of the covenant John and Jesus derived from the official nature of their mission the import of Jesus baptism though separately conducted would be essentially the same as John's. Thus as a sign of the covenant lawsuit against Israel the baptismal right of Jesus was like John's a symbol of imminent judgment or deal of the people of the old covenant. This interpretation of Jesus early baptizing in terms of the concurrent ultimatum mission of John is strikingly confirmed by this fact the evident cessation of this baptism that Jesus was involved in the cessation of that once John was imprisoned. So John engages in this final call and that call is rejected and that rejection of that call is registered in the act of his imprisonment and Jesus involvement with that ministry and that baptism at that particular point. By suffering the voice and the wilderness to be silenced the Lord of the covenant concluded the ultimatum stage in his lawsuit against Israel. There's no hope beyond this now judging the Lord's judging that Israel's responsible representatives had by now decisively rejected his warning. The profound satisfaction which the defiant rulers must have registered that John's imprisonment was it would seem the final intolerable expression of their contempt for the heavenly authority in which John had come to them. He hadn't accepted that he was from the Lord and now he's imprisoned and they delight over that and that expresses their final devilish rejection of the Lord and his demands. Hence the imprisonment of John was the signal for the departure of Jesus to Galilee so they in terms of understanding the stages in our Lord's ministry there is this earlier stage where he's involved in doing this. John's imprisonment, the Old Testament oriented warning is over and now Jesus turns from the Judean area he has for Galilee and he proceeds to preach the coming of the kingdom of the new covenant or order. The form of presentation in the Gospels especially in Matthew and Mark is such as to call attention to the fact that it was the imprisonment of John that prompted Jesus to initiate the new ministry in Galilee to turn from the Old Testament order to the New Testament order. The ministry in Galilee whose epical nature the synoptic Gospels are clearly concerned to impress upon us, the synoptic Gospels begin right at this point to record the teaching of Jesus with its announcement that now the time was fulfilled and the kingdom had had the Old Testament preparation. It's done offended in this particular way that drives people to the cross and now it's that time for the announcement of this new stage. Thus implicitly the Gospels trace to John's imprisonment the ending of the early Judean ministry of Jesus with this particular baptismal right that is they implicitly connect the cessation of Jesus early baptism with the termination of the ultimatum stage in the covenant lawsuit against Israel. So as so much as for the understanding of the linkage here in the transition between the Old Order and the new and how our Lord is involved in both but now we're especially then interested in the way in which each stage is comes to expression in a ritual of water a baptizing experience. And can we doubt then that there there is in Christian baptism that same essential significance that there was in in the Johannes baptism namely that it is pointing us within the Christian community now again even though as a whole this is not a works arrangement it's a grace arrangement nevertheless not all within this covenant are properly there we keep putting up our two circles on the board big circle covenant smaller circle alike. And so what the the right of incorporation into the new covenant this baptismal sign signifies basically is the judgment the day of accountability for those who are within the covenant and those who are not in Christ then will undergo this baptism of judgment and death but meanwhile of course we are invited by this same ritual to the right. We recognize that Christ has undergone that baptism for us and so we can be assured that already by faith in Christ we are beyond that probation that we have passed that judgment in Christ and not just justify but we have approved in terms of his active obedience approved as those who have earned heaven but nevertheless the baptismal sign itself is one which is fraught with this dramatic meaning of the judgment. Judgment of God which should be driving as you see to the cross to come into the ark and so on so that I think may suffice for just trying to recapitulate and add a little bit to our discussion. And I don't have any of the points that anyone had to mind since last week or yes. On the transition between the two covenants in the symbolism of baptism is there anything to the dissimilarity of the whole covenant right certain decision to be bloody and baptism in non-life and that's a distinction of sort of I think. I often mention re-formed observation about the distinction that the one is fulfillment is non-bloody. Yeah I've never been inclined to put any particular stock in that because I don't know what the biblical evidence would be for that in biblical discussion of circumstances and the only one who sees that it's a bloody right is zipper of the wife of Moses who would fail to appreciate the meaning of the whole thing. So I'm inclined just to see the two of them as two different symbols for that one reality without any particular reflection on the particular mode. Last week you said that the classical-reformed argument for batchizing interest was the idea of the project children of the promise and you contrasted that with another argument that is better. Can you explain that different again? The classical defense of infant baptism is related, as you say, the idea that the promise is in the picture and that's why I was arguing that the concept of the promise as Paul is that pains to bring out especially in Romans 9 through 11 has to do with the election. That Isaac is the seat of promise that Jacob is the seat of promise that he saw. And so the concept of the promise equals the election. And then I was saying that election cannot be the rationale of the ground for the best all of baptism or in the Old Testament circumcision. Precisely because of cases like Jacob and Esau where circumcision, the sign of incorporation is by God's command, bestowed on Esau. Esau is recognized as part of the Holy Covenant community and receives circumcision as the signer of even though he is not elect. And in that case, of course, it's all the more compelling because the fact that he is not elect is already known by his parents because of the pre-birth prophecy of the Lord or declaration of the Lord that he has rejected Esau. And so insofar as the traditional Presbyterian position is right in arguing for the continuity of baptism with circumcision than they are, then they have to deal with this fact regarding circumcision that it was not applied in terms of the promise. That was not the basis of it in that particular case clearly or in the case so obviously of many other of the Israelites because for the most part the majority of them apparently rebelled and broke the covenant. And yet they were all, meanwhile within it by God's command and provision, they were all circumcised. So the simple facts are that that cannot be the basis was not the basis for destroying the right of circumstances.