“As far as the Jews were concerned, the Bible teaches that because they were born into an Israelite family, circumcised in the covenant on the eighth day, they were attached to the tree. This attachment was an objective historical fact. But the sin and hypocrisy of many of them was also an objective fact, and …
Can’t Leave a Place You Never Were
“There really are people who really are removed from the Vine. They are described in Scripture as branches which bear no fruit. The Bible teaches that these are people who are connected to Christ (they have to be connected to Him in order to be removed from Him), who nevertheless have no saving interest in …
But Jesus Never Consulted Our Book of Appropriate Illustrations
“For many Christians, [John 15:1-6] is a ‘problem passage.’ We want Christ to use a different figure. We want Him to be the Marble Box, with us as the individual marbles. When we are saved, we are put into the Marble Box, and we had better watch it, or we might find ourselves taken out …
A Tie That Binds
“A man may lie at the altar about his intention to be faithful to his bride. But his hypocrisy does not keep him from entering into the married state. An oath, when taken, binds. When it is a lying oath, then the sin is truly grievous precisely because the oath binds” (To a Thousand Generations, …
Somebody Does It
“‘Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed’ (John 8:31). There is a distinction made here between a disciple, and a disciple indeed. Christ is speaking generally to Jews who had believed in Him, and goes on to show that it is possible …
What Room Is the Debate In?
“The modern debate over infant baptism frequently shows how far removed we are from the debates of the first century. Our debates center around a question like this: ‘Do you mean to say that you think the Gentiles in the first century baptized their infants? Where do you get that?’ In the first century the …
A Circumcised and Baptized Heart Point the Same Direction
“Do circumcision and baptism refer to the same spiritual realities? If they do, and one is required for infants, then the other cannot be excluded because of what it signifies” (To a Thousand Generations, p. 73)
At Least Some . . .
“Under the providence of God and the teaching and leadership of the apostles, circumcision was ‘fading away,’ along with the rest of the cultus of the Old Covenant . . . But while circumcision was fading away, it continued to be practiced by thousands in a way that affected the membership of the visible church …
The Point At Issue
“So if there was Christian circumcision (and there was), and if there were Christian synagogues (and there were), and if the Christians who went to these synagogues were the same believers who circumcised their sons (and they were), then the necessary conclusion is that we know with certainty that some first century churches had infant …
And the Answer is “Sure.”
“‘Myriads’ of Jews had believed. There had been three thousand on the first day alone, so obviously there had to be numerous meeting places for them. James refers to these assemblies of Christian Jews as synagogues. These same Christian Jews, we have established, continued to circumcise their sons, and were organized in a network of …