Of the Waters of Infant Baptism: A Follow-Up

Infant baptism continues to perplex many. An unpersuaded inquirer offered the following follow-up question/comment:

I was baptized as an infant, and I came to understand that I was completely unable to change my attitude towards God (much less His creation) until He graciously intervened and brought me out of the darkness. So I wonder, is it because of some "Covenant" that God made with Abraham, or was it the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit that ultimately brings us to the real kingdom of God? Also, I still cannot find any biblical testimony which would lead me to the conclusion that infant baptism is a necessity, much less an inference. I reread Galatians and the Apostle Paul repeatedly restates that it is not "circumcision" which counts but a renewed and changed heart/life in Christ!

This is worthy a response. So here goes:

First of all, is baptism a necessity? Clearly, Jesus commanded His church to go into all the world and baptize (Matthew 28:18-20). Is obedience to a command of Jesus a 'necessity'? I think so. So the question is really whether infant baptism is included in the command.

To put it another way, however, we might ask whether water baptism is a necessity for salvation. Here we would reply that the sacrament itself saves no one, neither adult nor infant. It is the reality of the cleansing that comes in being joined to Jesus Christ that saves. Thus, we would affirm that not the sacrament of baptism but the baptism in the Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary for salvation for all who would be saved.

It only by grace through faith that we are saved, because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. By the original covenant God made with Adam, when he sinned, all his descendants (the whole human race) fell into sin and under condemnation. Infants are children of Adam; they are sinners from the womb. They need salvation like the rest.

Baptism does not save them, but baptism is a sign. This means it signifies something. It signifies cleansing. It signifies the outpouring of the Spirit from heaven. It signifies being joined with Christ.

Baptism is also a seal. This means it confirms something, like a seal placed on a document by a notary public. Baptism confirms the truthfulness of God's promise and the obligation placed upon the members of the church. Church membership saves no one. Water baptism saves no one, neither infants nor adults. But when the members are received into the visible church, they are to be baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Their baptism is the rite of initiation which confirms them as members of the church and obliged to obey all that Christ has commanded us, including the commands to repent and believe. Children in the church are to be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They are to taught to obey the commandments of Christ. They are to be called to repent and believe. Again, their baptism does not save them, but they are to be pointed to their baptism (infants don't remember the day of their baptism, but they can be reminded of the MEANING of baptism.) They can be reminded that God graciously allowed them to be born of Christian parents, in a Christian home, and to be baptized into a Christian church. Those are great privileges; and they place great responsibility on the child to heed and obey the gospel they are hearing.

So we say again, water baptism does not save anyone, but baptism means something, and it confirms something.

The Reformed faith affirms the continuity of the Old Testament (Old Covenant) and the New Testament (New Covenant). There is only one way of salvation, through faith in Jesus Christ. The old covenant pointed to Christ; the new covenant is the fulfillment of the salvation by Christ. There is a continuity and a fulfillment. The promises made to Abraham are fulfilled in Jesus Christ (specifically, the promised Seed of Abraham would bring blessing to all the nations: see Genesis 12:1-3, 15:5, and chapter 17.). Baptism in the new covenant corresponds to circumcision in the old. The old was a bloody ritual; Jesus' once for all death was the once for all end and fulfillment of the blood sacrifice. The blood of circumcision has given way to the water of baptism, but they mean the same--cleansing; and the true cleansing they represent (signify) is to be found only in the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ and the outpouring of His Spirit.

To close, here is a quote from the instruction we give from the OPC Directory for the Public Worship of God as it relates to infant baptism:

Although our young children do not yet understand these things, they are nevertheless to be baptized. For the promise of the covenant is made to believers and to their seed, as God declared unto Abraham: "And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee." In the new dispensation no less than in the old, the seed of the faithful, born within the church, have, by virtue of their birth, interest in the covenant and right to the seal of it and to the outward privileges of the church. For the covenant of grace is the same in substance under both dispensations, and the grace of God for the consolation of believers is even more fully manifested in the new dispensation. Moreover, our Saviour admitted little children into his presence, embracing and blessing them, and saying, "Of such is the kingdom of God." So the children of the covenant are by baptism distinguished from the world and solemnly received into the visible church.

You are absolutely right in saying, "I was completely unable to change my attitude towards God (much less His creation) until He graciously intervened and brought me out of the darkness." And that is precisely what baptism says, "Unless you are cleansed from above by the GRACE of JESUS and by the HOLY SPIRIT you remain in your uncleanness." That is what baptism says to us and to our children, and that is very biblical!


Yours in Christ,
Dan Knox
　

What's the Difference?

Recently I was handed the question, "Does the Orthodox Presbyterian Church have any theological differences with the commentaries of C.H.Spurgeon, A.W. Pink, Horatius Bonar, Andrew Bonar, J.C. Ryle, L.R. Shelton, Jr.?"

My response follows:

The works of the men whom you have mentioned are found generously in the libraries of men in the OPC. We certainly see them as men who embrace the Reformed doctrine of salvation (soteriology) in God's electing grace (by grace alone, through faith alone, by Christ alone). Each of those you have mentioned would have seen himself as deeply indebted to the Reformation and to the older Puritan writers.

Of the list, the two Bonars were Presbyterians, Ryle was a bishop in the Church of England, and Spurgeon, Pink, and Shelton were Baptists.

That statement, in itself, says something about their doctrine of the church (ecclesiology). But it also points to their difference in views in regards to the sacraments (sacramentology).

Presbyterians are committed to the Presbyterian form of government, which stands over against the hierarchialism of the Church of England on the one hand, and independency or congregationalism of the Baptist churches on the other hand. In Presbyterianism the emphasis is upon the governance of the church through elders (presbyters) who may be ministers or ruling elders who together hold office and share rule in the church. Presbyterianism, also, sees biblical warrant for the various judicatories of the church: sessions, presbyteries, and synods or general assemblies. To my knowledge Ryle, Spurgeon, Pink, and Shelton did not particularly address themselves to ecclesiology in most of their writings.

For them and for many of the older Puritans, the great tendency is to focus on individual salvation in what might be called experimental (or experiential) religion in which the doctrines of grace are dealt with in terms of the order of salvation (predestination, election, regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification), applicable to the individual believer.

The Westminster Confession of Faith and catechisms, however, very much emphasize what might be called the history of salvation, the doctrines of the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, and the theology of the church as church, collectively rather than individualistically. That is not to deny the order of salvation applicable to individuals but to also give due weight to the whole scope of redemption in the church, and the corporate expression of the kingdom of God coming to bear in the church in the world.

And, of course, in terms of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, the Presbyterian confession and standards emphasize them as sacraments, serving not merely as ordinances given to the church, but also means of grace through which the Spirit is communicated, not in any mechanical or magical sense, but as the administration of the signs and seals of the Lord's covenant of grace.

Baptists and Presbyterians think quite differently about baptism and children in the church. Whereas Presbyterians receive the children of believing parents as holy and thus set apart to the Lord and rightly the recipients of baptism and included in the church, the Baptist writers tend to view their infants as little devils, not members of the church, and not to baptized until they profess faith. The Presbyterians see them as those privileged to be born and reared in the bosom of the church and to be treated as such, with the ongoing call to repentance and faith in keeping with their covenant status.

Assuming that Ryle and the Baptists you mentioned were true to their convictions, Anglican and Baptistic, respectively, they would not have been able to be ordained in the OPC. Even so, we would still rejoice in those many places where we so wholeheartedly agree with them in the things of God.

In Christ,
Dan

Of the Waters of Infant Baptism

Let's begin by wading into the water, the water of infant baptism, in the hopes of catching 'little ones'. The water seems shallow enough, but many have slipped on slippery stones, even close to shore, and many 'little ones' have gotten away. Any successful trout fisherman will tell you, you must first learn to 'read the water' to learn the secrets that lie underneath the surface.

Yes, Roman Catholicism says that infants should be baptized in the church. And they believe that infants need to saved from sin and the power of the devil. But their misunderstanding of the sacraments makes salvation dependent upon the power in the sacraments themselves, failing to understand the sacraments as signs and seals of the covenant of grace. This is a crucial distinction and difference from the faith professed in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

In the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter XXVIII, paragraphs 1 and 4, we in the OPC affirm the following:

1. "Baptism is a sacrament of the new testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church; but also, to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life. Which sacrament is, by Christ's own appointment, to be continued in his church until the end of the world."

4. "Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one, or both, believing parents, are to be baptized."

Further, in Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 95, we confess the following:

Q. 95. "To whom is baptism to be administered?"
A. "Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church, till they profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him; but the infants of such as are members of the visible church are to be baptized."

Underlying the importance of baptism in the Reformed churches like the OPC is the whole biblical understanding of the covenant. In the old covenant, the sign and seal of circumcision pointed to the covenant made with Abraham and his descendants the Jews. God promised to be their God and for them to be His people; He would be their shield and their great reward. All males were to be given the sign and seal of the covenant, namely circumcision. The descendants of Abraham and those received into his house were to be circumcised. In Romans 4:11, Paul describes circumcision as a sign and seal of a faith and salvation, which Abraham already had by God's grace. To be sure, not everyone circumcised in the covenant community (Israel) was saved, but only those who had true saving faith. Still the sign and seal were to be applied to the many, including the infants, before they evidenced any faith or not.

We confess (WCF XXV.II.) that the visible church, which is ... catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children. The new covenant includes both Jews and Gentiles. The new covenant like the old includes the believers and their children and also includes both privilege and responsibility.

Baptism marks a person as a member of the covenant community (the church). But baptism, like circumcision, does not save. It does, however, stand as a sign and seal of the covenant, pointing both the parents and the child to the promises and the warnings, the privileges and the responsibilities of being included in the covenant in the church.

We believe baptism sets us apart from the world. Scripture says that the children of a believing parent(s) are holy (I Cor. 7).

The baptism of our children says to them that they belong not to themselves but to God in Christ. Therefore, they are continually reminded and called by their baptism to covenant faithfulness. Woe to that child who does not improve upon his baptism, who does not repent and believe. Like a Bethsaida or Jerusalem to whom the ministry of Christ had come, only to be rejected, how great will be the woe to come upon the child who does not respond to God's covenant faithfulness and His testimony of compassion and love in Christ.

In a certain sense, infant baptism epitomizes covenant grace. Like the child who cannot understand, who cannot say yes or no, the baptism of an infant points to the wonderful truth that our sovereign God saves the weak, the helpless. Again, I say, God speaks to us through baptism; it is, as it were, a sermon in picture (sign) and an awesome confirmation that binds us to the covenant (seal).

We acknowledge that the covenant sign and seal set before us both God's covenant blessing and curse, both promise and warning. The child included among those receiving the covenant privileges of the ministry of word, sacrament, and discipline are more than doubly accountable. Not only are they created and included in the original covenant with Adam, but they are privileged to be accounted among the people of God. Thus, their baptism continually beckons them to obedience and faith.

Baptism no more saves our children than circumcision saved an Esau, for example. Nevertheless, the sign of the covenant testifies to us and to our children of the new covenant. Baptism is not so much what we say to God as it is God's testimony to us. It says to us that it is God alone who saves, God alone who washes and sanctifies. It is the washing of the Spirit from above, the washing that comes through the blood of Christ, that saves us.

This will have to do this evening for a first lesson in 'reading the water', an essential in 'man-fishing'.