Show Notes
In this episode of Peaceable and Kind, Derek Vreeland sits down with theologian and author Matthew Bates for a lively and challenging conversation about his newest book, Beyond the Salvation Wars: Why Both Protestants and Catholics Must Reimagine How We Are Saved.
Matthew is Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary, co-host of the OnScript podcast, and an author whose work has deeply influenced the way we think about the gospel. Drawing from N.T. Wright, Scot McKnight, and others, Matthew has developed the “gospel allegiance” model of salvation—centered on the idea that saving faith (Greek: pistis) means allegiance to King Jesus.
In this episode, Derek and Matthew dig into what that means for long-standing theological divides between Protestants and Catholics, Calvinists and Arminians.
With humor, candor, and a bit of theological edge, this conversation explores everything from the whether or not baptism is the starting point of salvation to the backlash Matthew has received from critics of his allegiance model. Derek doesn’t hold back in sharing how Bates’ work has shaped his thinking, even challenging his own sacramental theology.
Whether you’re Reformed, Catholic, Orthodox, or somewhere in between, this episode invites you to reconsider how we talk about salvation—and why it matters now more than ever.
Key Takeaways
Saving faith is better understood as allegiance to Jesus as King.
The gospel allegiance model offers a bridge across Protestant-Catholic and Calvinist-Arminian divides.
Baptism is not an event but a nuanced process which begins by the declaration of allegiance.
Matthew Bates’ work has drawn pushback—especially from some within the Reformed tradition—but also offers a hopeful vision for Christian unity around the gospel.
Distinguishing between God’s saving action, the means of reception, and the results can bring clarity to complex debates.
Books mentioned in this episode:
Salvation by Allegiance Alone – Matthew Bates
Gospel Allegiance – Matthew Bates
The Gospel Precisely – Matthew Bates
Why the Gospel? – Matthew Bates
Beyond the Salvation Wars – Matthew Bates
The King Jesus Gospel – Scot McKnight
🎧 Listen now and enter the conversation on what it really means to be saved—and what kind of gospel we are called to believe.
Preorder Derek’s new book, Incarnation: 8 Lessons on How God Meets Us here: https://amzn.to/42jSZAs
Did this episode spark a new way of thinking for you? Here’s how you can support the show:
Leave a review
Share it with your friends—even if you think it’s heresy 😉
Give us a 5-star rating on your favorite podcast app
Get to know the host: https://derekvreeland.com
Interact with Derek on Instagram, Twitter, Bluesky, or Facebook
Transcript
Narrator: Welcome back. Welcome to another episode of Peaceable and Kind. I am your host, Derek Vreeland. And if you have been tracking with us here on Peaceable and Kind, let me invite you to leave a rating or review. And if you find value in this episode or a previous episode, let me encourage you to share a link on social media or share it with a friend. And let me be honest, if you don’t like what we’re doing at Peaceable and Kind, and you think that these episodes are awful and that it’s heretical. Then let me invite you to share with your friends and let them know you don’t like what we’re doing. I mean, I’m I’m really at a point where I’m waiting for some major pushback. with the podcast and with my writing. I mean, I would love a farewell tweet or a YouTube video of seminary professors maligning and ridiculing my work. That would be so sweet. Really, if you would like to start an anti-peaceable and kind YouTube channel, please, by all means, go for it Or not, I can hear my wife’s voice in the back of my head saying, no, no, no, don’t do that. But I don’t know It would probably be fun. What’s important for me is that we turn these monologues into dialogues, that we turn this content into a conversation. I think if we are going to fulfill Jesus’ hope that all of his followers would be one and share in the oneness that Jesus has with the Father, then we need to learn to listen to people with whom we have disagreements. And maybe not always agree, but I think in theological and biblical dialogues I don’t think the goal is so much perfect agreement and alignment as much as it is just understanding. And so I’m very interested in turning this content into a conversation And speaking of conversations, today I have a guest with me. Joining me for this episode is Matthew Bates. He’s the professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary. He’s the co-founder and co-host of the Popular OnScript podcast. He did his graduate work at Regent College in Vancouver. and earned a PhD from Notre Dame. On a personal note, Matthew enjoys hiking and baseball and chasing around his seven kids, which will certainly keep him in shape. And many of you know Matthew Bates from his writing. He is the author of numerous books. including salvation by allegiance alone, which is a groundbreaking theological work on the nature of saving faith. He’s the author of Gospel Allegiance, which Matthew sent to me. I got that book for free as a part of a promotional giveaway. on social media, so three cheers for free books. Uh he’s also the author of the more popular The Gospel Precisely, which is a shorter, very accessible book And then in 2023, he released the acclaimed Why the Gospel, which went on to receive the Christianity Today 2024 Book Award in the area of popular theology. It was named in Outreach Magazine, a resource of the year, also discipleship. org listed it as a top book, the Inglewood Review. Named it one of the best books of 2023. And he has a new book that we’re going to talk about today beyond the Salvation Wars. why Protestants and Catholics must reimagine how we are saved. Matthew, welcome to Peaceable and Kind.
Derek Vreeland: Eric, thanks so much for having me after after that very kind introduction. This interview is doubtless going to be a letdown for people. Oh no. We’ll see. But thank you very much. It’s wonderful to be with you.
Narrator: Well, we’ve interacted on uh social media, and you were living closer to me in Missouri. Now you’re on the other side of the country, but uh this is our real first time connecting uh face to face and having a conversation. I am Looking forward to what we’re going to talk about today. And I’m excited about your new book. I have been um emphasizing and encouraging people. I think I had emailed you that I just had lunch with a church member uh last week uh who said, yeah, I’m reading a new book. He’s a chemical engineer and and likes to read theology and he said, I picked up this book, uh, Salvation by Allegiance Alone. Do you know anything about it? And I I think I did talk nonstop for 15 minutes. Um, and that really just speaks to how much your work Which I know has been built sort of on the shoulders of of other theologians like N. T. Wright, Scott McKnight, but it’s has such a deep, deep influence on me as a pastor, a thinker. as a writer, so I appreciate it.
Derek Vreeland: Building on uh yeah, and to you right, Scott uh John Barclay’s work and and many others as uh it’s really been an exciting time as a scholar to get to work on topics that connect to salvation. As obviously these are deep truths, longstanding truths for the church. And I think we’re in a season where we’re um increasingly able to nuance them. And it’s fun.
Narrator: As a pastor, I so appreciate scholars who write books for the church. And beyond the salvation wars, I see it as sort of like the Some of the church implications of your gospel allegiance model, which I think is so important. And maybe for those who aren’t familiar with your work Um, can you describe what the gospel allegiance model is and how it challenges particularly more popular evangelical um understandings of salvation. So the gospel allegiance model is really a two-part model for understanding
Derek Vreeland: um a framework for salvation. And it’s two part because the two parts come together to coordinate in order to make hopefully a a nuanced understanding of how salvation works in Scripture and each heart like the nuance is uh a minor advance that together hopefully creates something new that’s true, um, at least for many people. It’s an ancient truth. I think it’s rooted in the ancient church. But it’s new for many who have floated around in Christian circles for a long time. So the first part is to understand that the gospel is royal. And that it involves Jesus not just as a savior, but specifically as a king. And it really wants to emphasize that when the New Testament describes Jesus in his many, many roles, the the kind of the center of energy falls on him being the Christ. And so much so that we kind of take that term for granted and we don’t think about what Christ means much. But studies done by scholars like Matthew Novenson, Int. Wright also emphasize this, have demonstrated that the term uh Christos was an honorific title. uh during this time period, uh which is sort of like an honorific today might be like the term doctor. Like where what’s it’s like on the one hand it’s acknowledging someone has a PhD or a doctor of ministry degree. or a medical degree or whatever it might be. But the term doctor is an honor, like to be called that. And it it’s it’s different from like your professional qualification, which might be an MD or a PhD or whatever it is. But we call people Dr. you know, um, Bates or Dr. Vreeland or whatever it might be, right? Just as a way of honoring. So similarly the term Christ is an honorific title, but it its main valence is kingship and it’s a royal title then. And so the recovery of that whenever we talk about the gospel is just the the plain bald assertion Jesus is the Christ. is really um a uh a really key piece of the gospel in the New Testament. And so, yeah, that’s part one Part two then would be pairing with that the understanding that the term faith doesn’t simply mean belief, doesn’t simply mean trust. But includes those ideas and goes beyond them. Um there are times when we could restrict it and say it just means belief or just means trust, but uh kind of our richest understandings of of faith in the New Testament, the Greek word pistis include ideas of loyalty or faithfulness or allegiance. And so when we bring those two together then, what does it mean to respond to the gospel contextually in the New Testament? If We’re talking about the gospel of a king. To respond to this king means to give loyalty or allegiance to King Jesus. And that’s at the heart of salvation and at the heart of what it means to respond to the gospel. So that’s the gospel allegiance model Is bringing together the idea of Jesus’ kingship with the idea of faith as allegiance.
Narrator: In my own preaching and writing, I’ve made it an emphasis when I refer to Jesus. I I try to use the personal name Jesus. I have done this for years because I think Christ is somewhat cliched And I think I think you’re right, we have lost in the modern church the sort of historical sense of the meaning of Christ. And I remember he remember hearing Billy Graham uh preach when I was a teenager and he would he would he would use the the title Christ. And it’s I think it’s because, you know, Paul in his epistles, um, that’s shorthand, you know, like we would like you said, like we call people doctor and then we sort of associate that as their name, forgetting that it really is a title. And it’s interesting that we have lost the kingship of Jesus as the, I think you said the climax of or the center energy of the gospel, because I think it’s become a little cliched. And so I’ve tried to emphasize the personal name Jesus, but then if I’m writing or preaching and I I want to bring out the royal nature of the gospel, I’ll say uh King Jesus, of course, this made popular by Scott McKnight’s work. But that’s so helpful. But it’s also challenging for some people. And in this new book, Beyond the Salvation Wars, You are entering into a battlefield, uh, a number of battlefields, with the hope that this model, the gospel allegiance model can really help overcome the Protestant Catholic as well as Calvinist Arminian disagreements about salvation How does the gospel allegiance model help bridge that gap, so to speak, between these classic theological divides?
Derek Vreeland: I think it’s obviously not a proposal that will heal all wounds, but as you put it, is a bridge piece that hopefully um by healing some of the wounds We can begin to make ecumenical progress in the church, which I think is the heartbeat of Jesus as he prays for the church to be one, right? Just as he and the Father are one. Um and so when we think about the followers of Jesus and our sadly fractured condition that we know we we want to be with Jesus in pushing toward greater um unity and harmony in the church. So I do think that the main way in which This proposal can begin to heal the Catholic Protestant wounds is by um helping to create a model that makes better sense of how works and faith coordinate rather than seeing them as antithetical. And a lot of the the harmful energy I think that has been part of the church’s tradition around salvation conversations have had to do with a very fraught understanding of how faith and works are somehow or another opposites or are in an antagonistic position towards vis-à-vis one another So wanting to uh provide a model that’s true, but maybe can help the church is part of what has motivated um this works mobilization at least. It really was not part of the the work’s intention originally. And it’s it’s more that as I saw these things in the scripture and saw that they were true it increasingly was clarified in my mind that they may have ecumenical potential. Uh so really I think that the way in which it helps is to see that Faith, when we begin to see that it’s about confessing allegiance to Jesus, that when we’re talking about saving faith at least, that it’s connected especially to an oath that we might speak at baptism. for instance, uh that we declare our loyalty to King Jesus. That’s maybe what it means then when we talk about being baptized into his name. Like that probably involved like an oath of loyalty to King Jesus uh that this is actually something that we do with our bodies. Um we submit ourselves to to repentance uh as part of Um, most of the time our baptisms, it can be connected to other phases and stages of life too, uh, that we declare with our mouth that Jesus is Lord. But these are physical actions that we do, um that we might call deeds, uh even. And helping uh I think to see that faith um has room within it to f to position works that A helpful step forward for the church and begins to make sense of some passages in Paul where he says very clearly many times that we will be judged on the basis of our deeds. um that those who do things will be granted eternal life. Romans 2, uh things like that.
Narrator: We begin to see that there may be ways of putting together our soteriology when we bring together the New Testament that are more um ways that are uh more helpful I think most people when they hear the word allegiance, uh, modern English speakers, I think it does sort of captivate their imagination. to really understand what first century pistis faith was really about because in the ancient world you know, politics, religion, culture, we’re all mixed up. In the modern world, we have the you know line of demarcation between the secular and the sacred, between religion and politics. But I love how that allegiance went ‘cause when you say allegiance, or we use the popular phrase, if you’re going to pledge allegiance, of course I remember being a child and you know in in grade school you stand up and there is a liturgical gesture, you put your hand on your heart and you pledge allegiance to the flag. I think people when they they hear that imagery, They’re thinking, oh yeah, that’s not just what I feel on the inside, but that’s going to prompt a certain kind of action. So if my allegiance is to the nation in which I was born, It’s it starts in my heart. It’s something I feel, a sort of pride for my nation, but there are implications then the of of citizenship. And so that’s why I think allegiance is such a helpful understanding of saving faith, because if Jesus indeed is king, then and if he’s going to rescue us in his kingdom and through his kingdom’s operation, then what is due him and the means by which we receive that saving action? is not simply having positive ideas, but pledging our allegiance. And that that’s why I’m so excited about this model and and agree. uh that it’s helpful because it does start in the heart, but then it it prompts action. And it seems like, to me at least, a certain segment of Protestantism has a real allergy to anything that sounds like works. And so I like the way you’re you’re bridging together faith and works within that allegiance model. I have to pause this episode for just a moment to tell you that I have written a new book. Incarnation: 8 Lessons on How God Meets Us. This eight-week Bible study uses the uniqueness of the message translation to explain. Explore God’s presence with us. Link to pre-order is in the show notes. And you have in the book this hope of unity, but I, and when I first started the book, I was very excited about that. But then as I was reading, I was like, wow. This is unity through some work that has to be done because you’re challenging Catholics and Protestants, Calvinists and Arminians. And I thought, well Uh, I want and I hope for the unity of the church, but there’s a pretty big challenge that you give to both sides. And um so let’s just think just for a moment about some of the divides between Calvinists, those who are beholden to a more reformed uh view of the Christian faith, and then the rest of us, uh, which could be, you know, Wesleyans or Minians, or even people influenced by Eastern Orthodoxy. It seems like Of the pushback I’ve seen online, particularly to Beyond the Salvation Wars, it is coming from our beloved Calvinistic brothers and sisters. Why do you think they have such a visceral reaction uh to your work?
Derek Vreeland: That’s true that the pushback has come in this particular new book, exclusively so far from people in the Calvinist camp. I haven’t really received any firm pushback from any other camp. So yeah, the TGC wrote a a very uh in my mind, uncharitable review of the book and inaccurate. Um it’s a review that unfortunately is going to be the most widely read review of the book, but uh significantly misreports what I actually did and uh and does so repeatedly, like foundationally. Um and then yeah, we had um as you alluded to in your your kind of humorous intro, um we had um some pushback uh we where we had a video review that was done of the book by four professors at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. And so Al Muller and Tom Schreiner and Jim Hamilton and Stephen Wellham offered a video critique of the book. And again, it’s just fundamentally inaccurate. There’s actually been probably three or four video responses and written responses showing that just again and again the video review didn’t even get the basics right. So that’s um unfortunate because we can’t really have um I would I would like this to be a conversation um with um my beloved Calvinist brothers and and sisters, but It’s hard to have a conversation um about around inaccuracies, right? You you you you only can really protest and say, like, you haven’t even begun to get me right. We can’t have a dialogue if you’re gonna just misrepresent. So it’s a challenge. Um why why has that happened? Uh well we can only speculate. I don’t want to im you know impute um ill motives to such people. Um so I I don’t know um necessarily why that’s happening. I can I can only guess. Um one one guess that I would have is that the reform system is just a very fine-tuned system. And because I’m asking those who are part of, you know, who are led to a dogmatically reformed position I’m using scripture and I I hope using it accurately and in context to press them to reconsider what some of their foundational terms mean or the range of meaning. And maybe they can sort of do that with one piece of it at a time and be like, okay, maybe we can fit that within our system if I was to push on grace, let’s say, which I do in chapter four of the prequel to this book, Beyond the Salvation Wars is really a sequel. Um it can be right on its own, but it’s it’s really a sequel to gospel allegiance where I really deal with the questions, what is the gospel, what is faith, what is grace, what are what are works? How do they all coordinate? And in chapter four, I have a whole chapter where I unpack grace in six dimensions following some of John Barclay’s work. I use scripture extensively to defend my views of grace. And maybe they could countenance you know me tweaking their ideas of grace if I wasn’t also tweaking ideas about works and uh faith and the gospel. And it’s really as all of those come together that I think they uh frankly maybe feel overwhelmed. uh that their system is is under serious threat by this alternative model. And frankly I do think it they’re right in that. I do think it it is. probably a threat to to their system. And maybe it’s a more systematic threat than other people have offered. I think there are other people who have maybe undermined chunks of that, but maybe they have it done coordinated way. Uh at least I I don’t want to flatter myself in thinking that somehow I I’ve achieved something something you know that I haven’t, but I but I I do wonder if it’s uh the more systematic presentation um that I’m offering that is such a challenge
Narrator: So much of the sort of like preaching of the gospel, pastoral ministry, discipleship, church life is rooted in their understanding of the gospel. And I think it’s Challenge not just about theology, but about church life. I mean, I’ve said for years that the gospel you preach informs the disciples that you’re making. And as a pastor, that’s my deep desire to make disciples of the Jesus way. But I I think that we have to get the the gospel right and I think we could start building bridges um with understanding the content of the gospel. You list out ten um sort of just basic theological underpinnings of the gospel, and I think that they would agree, but they seem to be insistent that justification by faith has to be a part of the gospel message, misunderstanding you know, the content of the gospel with the results of the gospel. As a side note, because this just happened, I was in my daily Bible reading, was reading through Acts. And I was noticing patterns in the preaching of the gospel in Acts 2, 3, and 5. And I know Scott McKnight talks about this in the King Jesus Gospel. But I was just a fresh reading and I was just noticing these trends. There’s this trend of um Peter preaching and proclaiming that that humanity killed Jesus, but God raised him from the dead. There is the central energy of Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the King, that’s in there. But one thing I noted that I hadn’t seen before, even though you’ve written about it, was that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was connected to the gospel in Acts 2 and 3 and 5. And when I was getting ready this morning, I was revisiting uh Salvation by Allegiance Alone. And I noticed there you actually have eight points. And the Holy Spirit wasn’t, I think if I remember right, in there, but in Gospel Allegiance and now beyond salvation wars. So I d I just recently came across I read uh Gospel Allegiance, but somehow missed that, and just reading devotionally Acts, I noticed Wait a minute. The Holy Spirit and the outpouring of the Spirit is connected to the kingship of Jesus. So I this is a little bit of a theological side note. I’m just curious in your own theological development, how did it come to pass that you saw and added the outpouring of the spirit to the sort of content of the gospel?
Derek Vreeland: I wish I could pinpoint when I t was you know noticing that that was a deficiency. And you know, after I wrote Salvation by Allegiance Alone, it it it was a kind of a breakout book for me, got a lot of attention. And a lot of people were asking questions and scrutinizing that eight-point list And I don’t know if it was through their critical engagement or through my own um study. Um it was never designed to be a kind of exclusive or prescriptive list. It was designed to be kind of an outline of a narrative of the points that make up the gospel together and I’ve always said what could be twelve points or twenty points Um there are there things that could be added or five. You know, it’s it’s designed to kind of capture a narrative um and to kind of like find the key points in the narrative. So you don’t you know, the incarnation’s obviously really important, promises made to David, you know, dying for our sins, Jesus dying on the cross. Yeah, all you know, resurrection. There are certain non-negotiables, and I think one of the non-negotiables that had been left out was obviously Jesus’ enthronement. And really, I was wanting to help people to kind of really see that in salvation by allegiance alone and say, hey, this moment where Jesus ascends to the right hand of God the Father and becomes the Christ in the fullest, deepest sense. Right, he’s he’s now the enthroned king, but this is really important and we’ve been missing it. And I think in my own mind, I probably filled out, and then of course he sends the spirit as the king, and you know, and I know the narrative and others do too. But I hadn’t made that explicit. And I think I I realized that I needed to make it explicit. And theologically part of the reason why is because it is part of the gospel that this is how the the benefits of salvation get applied to us or the results as you put it earlier. And I think that is a a really foundational Peace that really helps us to put everything together. Like when we see like okay, why is the gospel um you know why is it the power of God for salvation Um you know, as Paul describes it in in Romans 1, 16 through 17. Ultimately, if we we track through Paul’s theology, he makes it really clear that it’s actually through the Holy Spirit. And we would see this, for instance, in Romans 15, where he talks about you know, that the gospel being fulfilled and the power of the Spirit and so on and so forth. And in many other places too. But it’s because the Spirit applies the benefits of salvation to us. So on whenever we then um on upon the condition of faith, right, we declare Jesus to be our King Well, that’s really when we’re united to the spirit, um, to the spirit’s benefits. And the spirit’s benefits become ours like justification. So that begins to make sense of how everything begins to f to fit together, and that’s why Um again when we kind of circle back around this conversation about um why it has there’s been pushback from the reformed folks, and I think that they’re uncomfortable with positioning justification as a benefit of the gospel, which Yeah, I I think quite frankly is pretty clearly how scripture does position it. They’re uncomfortable with that though because I think of the conditional nature of that. It’s it’s conditional upon declared allegiance. And that um in introduces conditionality to our salvation where they’re going to want to make everything monergistic and unconditional. So that that um that that movement from justification to being a benefit
Narrator: rather than being um, I guess, some other position within the gospel is I I think one of the things that’s making them very uncomfortable Well, I appreciate including the outpouring of the Holy Spirit into the gospel because it’s also Trinitarian nature. So the Father has sent the Son. So the Son is the pre-existent, second member of the Trinity. But then I think it’s number two, then the father sends the son. And you know, the focus is on Jesus. But then, you know, with his ascension, his ascension is not his his departure or his um absence, but it’s his promotion in authority, and then the outpouring of the Spirit then is the presence of Jesus here with us So in the book, you are drawing out the implications of the gospel allegiance model and how it affects pertinent issues related to uh the life of the church and discipleship. You sort of have chapters dedicated to baptism and election. uh the once saved, always saved, perseverance of the saints, the uh order of salvation. You have a chapter on justification. But let’s talk, I I would love to have an entire podcast episode talking about each one of those topics. But let’s talk a little bit about baptism because again, I love that you are challenging both Protestants and Catholics through this. And you You frame the chapter you wrote on baptism with a question: Is baptism saving? Which you say is really an imprecise question, but it is questions that Christians are asking. And I will admit that chapter challenged me because I have a sacramental view of baptism. Now in our congregation, we’re non-denominational. We don’t baptize infants, but we receive infant baptism. We don’t require rebaptism. because of our sacramental understanding of baptism. And the challenge came uh for me when you write that it is inaccurate to say that baptism is a true starting point rather than an individual’s declaration of of allegiance or fidelity. And I’ve often used that language in talking to people about baptism. I have called it a starting point, so you’re challenging me. So Why is it inaccurate to say baptism is the true starting point? And then also what do you say to those traditions that do baptize infants?
Derek Vreeland: I would say it’s inaccurate to say that baptism is a true starting point just apart from nuancing what’s going on in a baptism. And that’s part of the reason why this is saving baptism is baptism saving. It’s just a little bit imprecise as a question. The more precise um kind of pulling apart of that would recognize that baptism um on the one hand had a meaning before you know Christianity emerged, that Jews were baptizing people. So I kind of lead people through um the evidence uh around uh baptisms that were happening apart from Christ before the Christian era. And this mainly has to do with Jewish purification rituals. But maybe more pertinent for your question is um is really the second part of um of how I kind of pull that apart and say that that baptism itself is a complex process and involves many parts. And so whenever we kind of treat it as an undifferentiated whole, then we miss the opportunity to see what’s going on internal to the process as Baptism as it’s described in earliest Christianity involves a number of things. First of all, somebody needs to hear the gospel message and to come to a certain kind of preliminary belief. That’s not described as saving in the New Testament. Um, that preliminary belief leads somebody to repent from their sins. So they begin to turn away from wrong action, and then they um they have to approach the baptismal water in some sense Right, and to be ready for baptism. And then there’s the baptism proper, which uh we have evidence in the New Testament involved again a declaration of oath or loyalty uh to King Jesus. Um and then there was actually a washing. And we have evidence that this involved a self-washing. We don’t know if with certainty it was exclusively a self-washing. So we kind of have images in our mind of, you know, because we’ve seen it so many times if we’re part of the adult baptism tradition Right of people getting dunked by somebody else, immersed, you know, plugging their nose, someone is immersing them, you know, in the name of the Father, Son of the Holy Spirit, pulling them out of the water, you know, putting them in and pulling them out. We don’t really have evidence that that’s how baptisms were conducted in the earliest church, that there was somebody leading the baptism, but we do have evidence that there was at least a self-washing as part of that. Which again, infants can’t wash themselves. So it would suggest that infants were not probably baptized in our earliest uh Christian contexts. And then after that there could be a laying on of hands sometimes, sometimes not. Anyway, there’s a lot of things that together make up a full baptismal process. Our first description of a full baptismal process is with Tertullian. in the third century. And then we have a little we have a fairly robust description of baptism in Justin Martyr, uh who would be um middle of the second century. So we we do have some sources that we can use to try to kind of like get a beat on what was going on. But the research that I conducted suggested that that if we attend with great care to what the New Testament says Uh it seems to suggest consistently that it is pistis, it is faith that is what justifies, it is the moment of union of Holy Spirit union comes with faith. If we see that within the context of baptism, then that would be the declaration of of oath. So it’s when somebody declared on oath that Jesus is their Lord, that that would be the moment of Holy Spirit union. So when we begin to pull those things apart, right, we just may have more room for nuance. And so that would mean then, by implication, if somebody didn’t as part of their baptismal process declare an oath of loyalty to Jesus or didn’t do it in some other way, right? That their baptism may not have caused Holy Spirit union. And we have an example of somebody who, in fact, in the New Testament, the example of Simon Magus, right, who who in fact believes, right, but hasn’t repented, doesn’t receive the Holy Spirit as part of this whole process. Anyway, uh all these things help, I think, us to nuance a little bit just uh it’s precisely how a baptism is saving. Um that was uh that answered one part of your question.
Narrator: I think you’d asked a second part of it, but I don’t remember exactly what it was. No, you you were scratching where I was itching. Uh because the yeah, no, you you did, because I I have often used marriage as an analogy for baptism. And so I talk about the official nature of a marriage covenant, do a little bit of covenant theology with baptism. But then I say when you’re dating, so my wife and I dated for four years, we had a real relationship. We loved each other and were growing in that love. But then there was something official with baptism. But here’s how you helped me and how you answered the question. And that is, I think pastorally, I have been focused too much on baptism as an event and not a process. And I have read the Church Fathers in the process of baptism, which includes there was fasting and and there was a process. I think that’s the correction I need to make. Uh that I’m I’m receiving your challenge. And maybe not emphasizing the baptism event in the water, but recognizing this event in the water is a part of a greater process. uh that begins with belief and allegiance. So you you did it. You answered uh both parts. Because I was I was asking about the the starting point and then infant baptism because again we We wrestle with that being a congregation that doesn’t practice infant baptism, but receives it, puts us sort of in a in a unique place. Well, Matthew, I have thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I hope in the future uh you can join me again. Uh let me ask, where can people find you online?
Derek Vreeland: Probably the easiest way to connect with me is that where I engage a bit is Facebook. Um if you send out a front request, I usually accept front requests. Getting near the limit of how many I can accept, but that’s probably where I have more robust engagements with people. I am also on X, um, but uh don’t do a lot of engaging there, but a little bit. Um you can always shoot me an email. I think my email is um sufficiently public. You can probably track it down somewhere Uh if you have a question, I do try to respond to emails within the limits of what I can do. But yeah, that’s those are three ways you can connect with me.
Narrator: I think once you get close to 5,000 friends, Facebook will then invite you to create a public page, which actually just happened to me, which is like sort of like a uh a little social media uh like strata that you enter into Um so go follow, send a friend request uh to Matthew W. Bates on Facebook. He will accept it. Let’s get enough people to send him Facebook friend request that he can become a public page. And I highly encourage you to go read his books. Of course, we’ve been talking about Beyond the Salvation Wars, which is dense and theologically robust. And if you feel a little intimidated by words like soteriology, then I do want to recommend that you go get Why the Gospel? Uh this was the 2023 book that’s a little bit more accessible and speaks of not only the gospel allegiance model, but how glory affects into all of this. It answers the question why we have the gospel and I’m gonna go ahead and spoiler for this one is because we need a king. Um also the gospel precisely Um is a short read that would be easily accessible. But if you want the challenge theologically, then get a copy of Beyond the Salvation Wars. Read Matthew Bates, follow him. I think uh Matthew, you’re doing great work for the body of Christ, and so I appreciate it. We’re all doing great work together. It’s exciting to get to serve our king. Amen. Amen. Well, thank you for joining. us for this episode. That’s all we have. Go in peace and be kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.