Daniel 1

The hero of the chapter is, of course, God. He has given his people (as he warned them) into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar (v. 2). This verse gives us another hint as to what this is all about: there is the repeated reference to “his God”, indicating that this narrative is contrasting the God of Israel with the gods of Babylon, particularly important for a people living as strangers and exiles in a foreign land. From this situation springs the implications of the passage for the church today, living as strangers from their heavenly, and ultimately new heavenly and earthly home amidst those who worship other gods.

Daniel and his friends are selected for training in Babylon and their identities are changed from Hebrew to Babylonian. Nevertheless, Daniel remains faithful to his God and does not defile himself with the king’s food. We don’t know what it is about the food that was defiling – perhaps it contained blood or fat (cf Lev. 3.17) or perhaps it was meat from unclean animals. Daniel remains obedient to God’s word. God, not Nebuchadnezzar is his real king. Here we have to be careful. Yes, Daniel is a good example to us and yes, things go well with him following his obedience. But the narrator just tells us that Daniel was faithful and that things went well with him. This is primarily descriptive. We certainly have to be wary of saying that his success in v.15 is God’s reward for Daniel’s faithfulness, or that God was showing his faithfulness to Daniel, even if we do acknowledge that the learning and skill are all from God and give him the glory for it. For a start, correlation does not necessarily imply causation. And God could equally have hardened the eunuch’s heart and led him to execute Daniel, even though Daniel remained faithful, without that reflecting unfaithfulness on God’s part. Job was faithful and look what happened to him in the short- to medium- term. We mustn’t have incorrect expectations of what a life of faithfulness to God will be like. In a sense, this adds to the setting up of the situation in which the story was set. These are faithful believers living in exile. This does, of course, teach us, of God’s sovereignty over the hearts of men.

In verses 17-21, God gave Daniel and his friends learning and skill in all literature and wisdom (v. 17). As a result of this, none was found like these men (v. 19). They were ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in the rest of Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom. This is not so much about God’s care and provision for Daniel and his friends (which would not have ceased to be the case if they were dunces) but about the superiority of the God of Israel – our God – to the Babylonian (false) gods.

Daniel 1 is therefore a message to God’s faithful people in exile (in contemporary terms, the church of Christ in the world), reminding them of God’s sovereignty over the rulers and his supremacy over the gods of this world and so calling them to remain faithful to him.

The Evangelical Doctrine of Baptism

Click HERE for “The Evangelical Doctrine of Baptism”, an article by Dr. John Stott from Churchman 112/1.

Given that Dr. Stott writes that he is “not concerned with the proper mode of baptism (whether by affusion or immersion), nor with the proper subjects for baptism (whether adults and infants, or adults only)”, he makes it quite clear in his article what he thinks on both matters, under heading (c) on page 2, two-thirds of the way down page 7, at the bottom of page 8 and the beginning of page 9.

To be honest, with a minimum amount of editing, you have a pretty good baptismal exhortation, particularly if you’re a paedobaptist.

Any dream will do?

A multi-coloured robe. Some strange dreams. Jealous brethren. A young man sold into slavery. Genesis 37 – what is it all about?

The key is to remember that Genesis 37-47 (at least) is all part of the same narrative. Genesis 45.5-8 tells us the answer. God in his sovereignty is sending Joseph to Egypt for the purpose of preserving a remnant for the people of Israel. God has made Joseph a mighty ruler in doing this. So really, this is showing us the “shape” of God’s salvation which he brings about through his Christ, isn’t it?

We have a person who starts off with much honour (v. 3). The Son had glory with the Father from before the foundation of the world (John 17.5). Joseph is marked out by special revelation from God to be a great ruler, one to whom Jacob and his brothers will bow down (vv.5-11). Jesus was marked out in Gabriel’s visit to Mary to reign over the house of Jacob, only it will be forever (Luke 1.33). Joseph’s brothers conspire to kill him (vv. 12-20). The Jews plotted to kill Jesus (John 11.53). Joseph is humiliated and becomes a slave. Jesus is humiliated and takes on the nature of a slave (Matthew 27.27-31 – he is even stripped of a robe; Philippians 2.7). Doesn’t this narrative now start to teach us about God’s ultimate salvation in Christ? It is a salvation through humiliation and weakness, with the Saviour’s own people rejecting him and being the agents of his humiliation.

“God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are.” – 1 Corinthians 1.28

And the implications? Well isn’t this going to be the lot of we who are in Christ, his people? We will ultimately reign in him (Revelation 2.26) but the way to exaltation is through humiliation. We will be hated and despised. We will be humiliated. We may even be put to death. We can certainly expect “schemes of man”. This is the nature of the Christian life.

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” – 2 Corinthians 4.8-10

Believers as Warrior-Evangelists

Within God’s providence, the BCP appointed Psalm 108 to be read yesterday evening, which seems somewhat appropriate following an afternoon of open-air preaching.

Richard Pratt, in his very helpful talks on preaching OT prophecy (available from the Proclamation Trust under the title, “Preaching from Kingdom to Kingdom” – click HERE for more details), talks about how the advancement of God’s kingdom is described in terms of Israel conquering the Gentiles, which we see in the New Testament fulfilled in the evangelistic mission of the church to all nations as people repent and believe in Christ as their Saviour and Lord in response to the preaching of the gospel. There do seem to be New Testament controls to support this – 2 Corinthians 10.4-6, for instance.

Can we not pray Psalm 108 Christianly in those terms? God has promised victory to his people over the Gentile nations (vv. 7-8), i.e. that they will be saved. With David, we may seek to conquer Edom (v. 10), i.e. through the preaching of the gospel bringing them under the rule of the Lord Jesus. It may be our experience, with David, that God for a time seems to have rejected his people and does not go out with Israel’s armies (v. 11), i.e. when God’s people go out to proclaim the good news of the Lord Jesus, God doesn’t appear to be working by his Spirit to convert people. We may therefore pray for God’s help against the enemy, for mere human efforts will be to no avail (v. 12). We can do so confidently, knowing that God will give victory over Israel’s foes (v.13), that is to say, his elect from the nations will repent and believe the good news, and come under the Lordship of Christ.

Other conquest Psalms which refer to the destruction of the nations may been seen to refer more clearly to the final judgment. Even in such Psalms as this, those who are not “conquered” by the preaching of the gospel” will of course be overthrown on the last day and condemned to eternal destruction.

I also do not want people to think that I am of the opinion that preaching the gospel and receiving a negative response is a bad thing. We are after all the fragrance from death to death as well as from life to life (2 Corinthians 2.15-16).

Calvin on Romans 2.13

Calvin has a way of phrasing things that amuses me (I know, I’m reading in translation). Here he is on Romans 2.13:

“They who pervert this passage for the purpose of building up justification by works, deserve most fully to be laughed at even by children.”

Nein!

In a talk given by N. T. Wright in 2003 (full text HERE) he writes the following (emphasis mine):

“Paul, in company with mainstream second-Temple Judaism, affirms that God’s final judgment will be in accordance with the entirety of a life led – in accordance, in other words, with works. He says this clearly and unambiguously in Romans 14.10–12 and 2 Corinthians 5.10. He affirms it in that terrifying passage about church-builders in 1 Corinthians 3. But the main passage in question is of course Romans 2.1–16… here is the first statement about justification in Romans, and lo and behold it affirms justification according to works! The doers of the law, he says, will be justified (2.13). The ‘works’ in accordance with which the Christian will be vindicated on the last day are not the unaided works of the self-help moralist. Nor are they the performance of the ethnically distinctive Jewish boundary-markers (sabbath, food-laws and circumcision). They are the things which show, rather, that one is in Christ; the things which are produced in one’s life as a result of the Spirit’s indwelling and operation…

“It is not often enough remarked upon, for instance, that in the Thessalonian letters, and in Philippians, [Paul] looks ahead to the coming day of judgment and sees God’s favourable verdict not on the basis of the merits and death of Christ, not because like Lord Hailsham he simply casts himself on the mercy of the judge, but on the basis of his apostolic work. ‘What is our hope and joy and crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus Christ at his royal appearing? Is it not you? For you are our glory and our joy.’ (1 Thess. 3.19f.; cp. Phil. 2.16f.)…The fact that Paul does not feel obliged at every point to say this shows, I think, that he is not as concerned as we are about the danger of speaking of the things he himself has done – though sometimes, to be sure, he adds a rider, which proves my point, that it is not his own energy but that which God gives and inspires within him (1 Cor. 15.10; Col. 1.29). But he is still clear that the things he does in the present, by moral and physical effort, will count to his credit on the last day, precisely because they are the effective signs that the Spirit of the living Christ has been at work in him.”

Wright’s theology of justification is verging on the Roman at this point. The Church of Rome, after all does not teach that we are saved by our own unaided works. A papist who knows his stuff would explode if that were suggested to him. Rome is not, of course, Pelagian, but semi-Pelagian. They, too, teach that while good works are the work of the Holy Spirit within us, those works still count in our favour. Here is an extract from its Catechism:

“2010: Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life.”

(The differences in the meanings that Wright and Rome give to “justification”, must be borne in mind, but the same ideas are expressed.)

I have no problem with the idea that good works are a sign that our faith is a saving faith, but Wright seems to go too far, and makes the works themselves partially the ground for our justification. He appears to take Romans 2.13 out of the context of Paul’s argument, which is to show that no-one, Jew or Gentile, is morally in the right before God: “By works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight.” (Romans 3.20). “Works of the law”, coming right after the declaration that Jew and Gentile are under sin and the quotation of Psalm 51, and considering the way Paul has been using “law” in this part of the argument, must be referring to works of morality, and not the boundary markers of circumcision etc. Justification has to be sought elsewhere, namely, in the propitiatory work of the Lord Jesus (Romans 3.21-26). To place any grounds for justification in human activity, even if it is Spirit-enabled activity, and not solely on Christ’s merit is robbing Christ of his glory and giving grounds for boasting in ourselves and not in him and his cross.

Not only is N. T. Wright being unbiblical in this, he is being un-Anglican. Article XI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, entitled Of the Justification of Man, reads:

“We are counted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings.”

Tom Wright may well be a thoroughly converted man. Much of what he says is orthodox and helpful but mixed in with this is what seems to be a distortion of a fundamental truth of the Christian gospel and so he is very dangerous. Please let’s hold on to the great Biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone.

Sirach 3

“Whoever honours his father atones for sins.” (v. 3)

“For kindness to a father will not be forgotten,
and against your sins it will be credited to you.” (vv. 14, 15)

“Water extinguishes a blazing fire:
so almsgiving atones for sins.” (v. 30)

Sirach, a.k.a. Ecclesiasticus, is a second-century Jewish writing. Therefore, it is clear that far from being a religion of grace alone, Judaism at this time had become one in which one’s moral works played some part in atonement for sin.

Article VI of the Church of England’s Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion declares:

“And the other Books [i.e. the Apocrypha] (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners.”

If the Church of England stuck to her Articles and read the books of the Apocrypha (although not to establish doctrine, of course), then perhaps its bishops would not come to the erroneous conclusion that so-called Second Temple Judaism was not a religion of works, as proponents of the New Perspective on Paul claim.

Sinclair Ferguson on the New Perspective

Click HERE for a very helpful lecture given by Sinclair Ferguson on the New Perspective on Paul, particularly the form promulgated by N. T. Wright.

Jacob’s Ladder

The antitype of Jacob’s ladder in Genesis 28.10-22 is probably well-known to most. In John 1.51, Jesus declares to Nathanael:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Jacob saw a ladder bridging heaven and earth, upon which angels were ascending and descending, with the Yahweh at the top declaring his covenant promises to Jacob. Jesus is the one who truly bridges heaven and earth, making atonement for sins by his death on the cross and thus enabling access to heaven and God.

But what does Jesus call Nathanael? “An Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit” (v. 47). What does “Jacob” mean? “He deceives“. The links between Genesis 28 and the opening chapters of John’s gospel go further. In response to the vision, Jacob declares that the place is “none other than the house of God” (v. 17). Only a short while after the encounter between Jesus and Nathanael, Jesus identifies himself as the true temple (v. 19-21) i.e. the true house of God, the place where God dwells and meets with his people.

Would it be going too far to interpret this encounter in John’s gospel as teaching us that in Jesus, the one who make access possible to heaven from earth, the one in whom the fullness of deity dwells and who is the meeting place between God and man, God is calling a new Jacob (with Nathanael as the representative disciple who believes in Jesus), the people to whom God is making his covenant promises of salvation, the people who are the fulfilment of what Israel (Jacob’s descendants) in the Old Testament?

Chiasm!

Genesis 26.34-28.9

A Esau marries Hittites (26.34-5)
B Isaac sends Esau and promises blessing (27.1-4)
C Rebekah overhears Isaac and Esau and tells Jacob how to get the blessing (27.5-17)
D Isaac blesses Jacob (27.18-29)
E Esau asks for Isaac’s blessing (27.30-31)
F Isaac declares that Jacob has been blessed (27.32-33)
G Esau asks for Isaac’s blessing (27.34)
H Isaac says that Jacob has come deceitfully and taken away the blessing (27.35)
G’ Esau asks for Isaac’s blessing (27.36)
F’ Isaac declares how Jacob has been blessed (27.37)
E’ Esau asks for Isaac’s blessing (27.38)
D’ Isaac blesses Esau (27.39-40)
C’ Rebekah hears of Esau’s hatred and tells Jacob how to save his life (27.41-46)
B’ Isaac sends Jacob and blesses him (28.1-5)
A’ Esau marries an Ishmaelite (28.6-9)

Genesis 27.35 would therefore seem to be the key verse, with the narrator (and thus God) making the point that it is the deceiver who inherits the blessing. Salvation is entirely apart from merit, or the will of man. God’s electing purposes (cf. Genesis 25.23) prevail.

That’s a start, anyway, but clearly there’s much more in the text than that: God sovereignly overruling sinful human behaviour to achieve his purposes, for instance. Considering the details of the blessing in light of redemptive history, the promises of the dew of heaven, the fatness of the earth and plenty of grain and wine, although immediately fulfilled in Canaan, ultimately look forward to the restored creation in the new heavens and the new earth. Peoples and nations serving and bowing down before Jacob sees its climax in the nations coming to Christ, who is his descendant. I’ve already commented on Jacob’s lordship over his brothers in a previous post. And do we not see in Genesis 28.6-9 a typical human response when we learn that we’re outside of God’s blessing? We try and make amends ourselves to somehow merit his favour. But this clearly doesn’t work: it all rests on God’s election and promise (Genesis 28.13).

Jacob and Esau

Two children breaking and bruising each other (as the Hebrew signifies) in their mother’s womb. One child emerging from the womb clutching to the heel of his brother. Well might we ask, with Rebekah in Genesis 25.22, “Why is this happening?”

Clearly, this passage teaches us about election. God chooses Jacob before the children have been born, declaring that “the older shall serve the younger” (v. 23), so that salvation is all of grace and nothing of works or merit (see also Romans 9.11-13). Jacob doesn’t deserve this privilege: Esau is the firstborn and Jacob himself is a cheater (not a cheetah).

But I wonder if there is more to it than that, from the perspective of redemptive history. According to Yahweh, two nations are in Rebekah’s womb and two peoples from within her shall be divided (v. 23). We can see in the struggling of the two unborn children within her womb the shape of the conflict that will subsequently exist throughout the ages between God’s nation – his elect, his kingdom, the church – and the kingdom of the world, a conflict which will ultimately result in God’s people triumphing over the world: “The one shall be stronger than the other, // the older shall serve the younger.” This conflict and triumph is writ large in the book of Obadiah (see particularly vv. 18ff) and will finally be fulfilled when the Lord Jesus Christ – the descendant of Jacob who was broken, bruised and crushed on the cross but is now risen, ascended and exalted – returns in judgement and himself breaks the nations with a rod of iron and dashes them in pieces like a potter’s vessel (Psalm 2.9), as will we, his people, in him (Rev. 2.26-27).

George Herbert and the Church of Rome

As new and old Rome did one Empire twist;
So both together are one Antichrist,
Yet with two faces, as their Janus was,
Being in this their old cracked looking-glass.
How dear to me, O God, thy counsels are!
Who may with thee compare?
Thus Sin triumphs in Western Babylon;
Yet not as Sin, but as Religion.
Of his two thrones he made the latter best,
And to defray his journey from the east.
Old and new Babylon are to hell and night,
As is the moon and sun to heav’n and light.
When th’ one did set the other did take place,
Confronting equally the law and grace.
They are hell’s landmarks, Satan’s double crest:
They are Sin’s nipples, feeding th’ east and west.

from The Church Militant, lines 205-220.

George Herbert and Redemptive-Historical Interpretation

The Bunch of Grapes

Joy, I did lock thee up: but some bad man
Hath let thee out again:
And now, methinks, I am where I began
Sev’n years ago: one vogue and vein,
One air of thoughts usurps my brain.
I did toward Canaan draw; but now I am
Brought back to the Red Sea, the sea of shame.

For as the Jews of old by God’s command
Travelled, and saw no town:
So now each Christian hath his journeys spanned:
Their story pens and sets us down.
A single deed is small renown.
God’s works are wide and let in future times;
His ancient justice overflows our crimes.

Then have we too our guardian fires and clouds;
Our Scripture-dew drops fast:
We have our sands and serpents, tents and shrouds;
Alas! our murmurings come not last.
But where’s the cluster? where’s the taste
Of mine inheritance? Lord, if I must borrow,
Let me as well take up their joy, as sorrow.

But can he want the grape, who hath the wine?
I have their fruit and more.
Blessèd be God who prospered Noah’s vine,
And make it bring forth grapes good store.
But much more him I must adore,
Who of the law’s sour juice sweet wine did make,
Ev’n God himself, being pressed for my sake.

Cartoon Church

For your amusement…

http://www.cartoonchurch.com/content/cc/category/cartoons/

Lot

What is Genesis 18.16-19.29 all about? Is Abraham giving us a model for intercessory prayer? Is this a warning about living too closely with the world? Is it an exhortation to flee from ungodliness. There must be some merit in those ideas. Often Abraham is the typical believer, who is in covenant with God, heir of the promises, doubting, but finding that God is faithful to his word. We are very quick to try and identify ourselves in the Bible, though, and if we take Luke 24.27 seriously, we should be first of all seeking to learn about the Lord Jesus. I wonder if Abraham is here typifying Christ with the main thrust actually being this: in response to the intercession of his chosen one, God will deliver his people when he judges the ungodly.

I think the key in the narrator’s comment in Genesis 19:29:

“So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived.” (ESV)

There’s another comment from the narrator a little earlier in the story, which goes to show this is not so much about the problems of being friends with the world and how we should respond (i.e. flee) but about the mercy of God:

“But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.” (Genesis 19.16, ESV)

Is not this the shape of things in the gospel? We have an Intercessor, who is at the Father’s right hand, ever pleading his sacrifice for his people, saying, “Spare them, they are righteous. I have paid for their sin and my righteousness has been counted to them.”

“We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 2.1-2, ESV)

As Christians looking back through the lenses of the death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus, then, this narrative gives us confidence that if we’re truly one of God’s people, that is, if we’ve repented and believed the gospel, when God judges this sinful world, we can be absolutely certain that we will be vindicated in the judgment. Even if we do “linger”, if we fall short from time to time, we don’t forfeit our salvation. What an assuring passage this is!

This seems to be consonant with the way the New Testament writers view the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of the Final Judgement of the world (Luke 17.28-30, 2 Peter 2.6-9). Believers inhabit a world that will be judged. This inhabitation is through no fault of our own. We can’t do anything about it, unless we fly off in a rocket and start a religious community on the Moon! (What would that be called, I wonder? The Lunatic Order?) Likewise, Sodom was just where Lot happened to live. The writer of Genesis doesn’t really see living there as a stain on Lot’s character, and the New Testament tells us that he was a righteous man. Rather than simply being a lesson in morality, teaching us the perils of too close an association with the world, it appears that the emphasis is really on God’s faithfulness to those who live in the world and who are being saved from it.

Once we have this foundation in place, we are then in a position to learn all sorts of things from this passage that the believer will experience living in a world heading for judgment (and what a similar world Genesis 19 is to the gospel is to the present age – see Genesis 19.5 cf. Romans 1.24-27) – for example, the hatred and accusations of those whose sin has been exposed (Genesis 19.9), and the lack of response to the preaching of the gospel, even among one’s own family members (Genesis 19.14). There is, of course, the sobering lesson of the one who looks as though they are safe, but who seeks to preserve their life and thus perishes (Genesis 19.26 cf. Luke 17.32-33).

Hopefully these ideas would yield an Old Testament sermon that is a Christocentric message, but which nonetheless preserves the details of the narrative and would thus be quite exciting, rather than one that races through five chapters at once and extracts doctrinal points, which not only makes for quite dull listening, but can also be very, very confusing.

Alec Motyer on Genesis 17.1-2

Alex Motyer writes this, in his very helpful (if ever so slightly dull) new BST commentary on Exodus (p.19)

“Genesis 17:1-2 needs to be guarded from misunderstanding as it might be taken to mean, ‘If you walk before me and be blameless, then I will make my covenant with you’. This would make the covenant appear as a divine response to Abram’s commitment, even a reward for the perfection of his ‘walk’. This cannot be so because the covenant between God and Abraham had already been inaugurated many years before (Gen 15:18). Also, the wording in Genesis 17:2 does not express the idea of inauguration but rather confirmation. A literal translation would be, ‘and I will place my covenant’, an expression which signifies the covenant coming into active operation as the stated relationship between its maker than its recipient. Abraham’s life of fellowship with the Lord was not the pre-condition of the covenant but rather the response by which he entered into the promised blessings. From beginning to end, God’s covenant relationship with his people is based on his grace and not their merits.”

And is not the continuity of this covenant into the present age seen in the same response that is demanded of Christians to God’s gracious promises?

“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5.48, A.V.)

cf. Genesis 17.1 (A.V.):

“I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.”

Genesis 17 and Households

Following the ratification of the covenant with Abraham (clearly the same covenant as God had inaugurated in Genesis 12 based on the same promises of a people, place, God’s presence/protection and the programme of blessing to the nations), circumcision was given as the sign of the covenant and, in obedience to the command of God, Abraham gave this sign to all in his household:

“And all the men of his house, those born in the house and those bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.” (Genesis 17.27)

It was, however, with Abraham and his (spiritual – Romans 4.11-12, 9.7) offspring that God covenants to be God to them forever (Genesis 17.7). The sign therefore demarcates the external covenant community (the visible church) within which are those who are thus truly in covenant with God, heirs of eternal salvation, those who are saved through faith.

The New Testament writers clearly indicate that baptism fulfils the same function, the external sign of the covenant, using the same language of baptism that was used of circumcision. Luke writes, following the conversion of Lydia:

“And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us.” (Acts 16.5)

Paul writes:

“I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.” (1 Corinthians 1.16)

From this we can confidently baptize the infant children of believers, for they are members of the believing household and thus the external covenant community, a status for which baptism in New Testament, as circumcision was in the Old, is the sign. If the continuation of this principle of giving the sign of the covenant to believing households is questioned, it should be remembered that God commands this to be kept by Abraham and his offspring after him throughout their generations. It is an everlasting covenant (Genesis 17.10, 13).

Therein lies the strength of the argument from household baptisms. It is not simply that households were baptized, and infants were regarded as part of the household in the first century AD, so infants might have been baptized, which seems to me a pretty weak argument, but rather that in describing the baptism of households, the New Testament writers saw baptism as the New Testament equivalent of circumcision, which God commanded to be applied to Abraham and his entire household, including infants, who were to circumcised on the eighth day.