Covenant Grace In Utero

“Yet you are he who took me from the womb;
you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts.
On you was I cast from my birth,
and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.” - Psalm 22.9-10

I was studying Psalm 22 with a younger brother at the weekend, and what we noticed was that in David’s distress, a pattern ultimately written large in the suffering of Christ upon the cross, one source of comfort for him, one ground for prayer for deliverance, was his past relationship with God. God had been committed to him from his mother’s womb and so he could faithfully pray, “Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help.” Psalm 71.5-6 makes the same point.

It is the normative experience for someone born in the covenant community to grow up trusting in the Triune God and knowing him as his God. This is what God promised Abraham in Genesis 17.7: “And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.” It springs entirely from God’s grace. David says, “You made me trust you at my mother’s breasts.” It is on this basis that we baptise our infants, giving them the sign and seal of God’s covenant, formally establishing that relationship. It is on this basis that we can say with the Prayer Book, on the principle of charitable assumption grounded on the word of God, “We yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this Infant with thy holy Spirit, to receive him for thine own Child by adoption, and to incorporate him into thy holy Church.”

It must therefore be concluded (and this saddens me, for I have dear friends who are of this persuasion) that a conversionist and antipaedobaptist approach to those born within the covenant community, in which they are regarded and reared as outsiders, unbelievers and unregenerate, until such time as they reach a point where they pray a prayer of repentance and commit their lives to Christ, withholding baptism from them until profession of faith, is profoundly out of tune with the hope and experience held before us in the Psalter, to the detriment of their faith and comfort in later suffering.

But it was a great joy on the Lord’s Day, at the annual river baptism service, amongst all the students and similarly aged people being baptised, to hear one family declare their intention for their infant daughter to be a Christian, their belief that the Bible teaches that children should be brought up from their earliest days to know and trust the Lord, and that baptism in the Bible marks the beginning of that process, and consequently their desire for her to be baptised.

Richard Sibbes on Baptism

The Anglican Puritan Richard Sibbes had a high view of what baptism achieves and the benefits it conveys, namely entry into the covenant and union with God and all the blessings thereof:

“Every infant that is baptised is the child of Christ.”

“Think of thy baptism when thou goest to God, especially when he seems angry. It is the seal of the covenant. Bring the promise: Lord, it is the seal of thy covenant; thou hast prevented me by thy grace; thou broughtest me into the covenant before I knew my right hand from my left.”

“I am in the covenant. Christ is mine; the Holy Ghost is mine; and God is mine.”

“By baptism I have union with the death of Christ; he died to take away sin, and my end must be his.”

Sibbes also writes of “the covenant made in baptism”.

That is not to say that simply having the sign is enough; it must be accompanied by faith:

“If we look no further, as profane spirits do not, than the water and the elements, we can have no comfort by these things; but we should consider God’s blessed institution and ordinance to strengthen our faith. And to our children when they come to years, baptism is an obligation to believe; because they have received the seal beforehand, and it is a means to believe.”

“Those that live to years to years of discretion, their baptism is an engagement and obligation to them to believe, because they have undertaken, by those that answered for them, to believe when they come to years; and, if, when they come to years, they answer not the covenant of grace and the answer of a good conscience, if they do not believe, and renounce Satan, all is frustrate. Their baptism doth them no good, if they make not good their covenant by believing and renouncing.”

Thinking upon our baptism will help us when we are tempted to sin:

“When we go to church to offer our service to God, think, by baptism we were consecrated and dedicated to God. Therefore it is sacrilege for persons baptized to yield to temptations to sin. We are dedicated to God in baptism…Shall I yield to that that in baptism I have sworn against?”

Looking back to the promises of God in baptism will also give us assurance when we are tempted to despair beause of our sin:

“If we be tempted to despair for sin, let us call to mind the promises of grace and forgiveness of sins, and the seal of forgiveness of sins, which is baptism. For as water in baptism washeth the body, so the blood of Christ washeth the soul. Let us make that use of our baptism, in temptations, not to despair for sin.”

For those who are illiterate, baptism is a means of instruction which will aid Christians in their walk with God. Now Sibbes was writing in an age when illiteracy was much more widespread than it is now (although one wonders sometimes) but his point might well apply to those with learning difficulties, for whom much of what goes on in evangelical Christianity, with its reading culture, is inaccessible:

“There are many that are not book-learned, that cannot read, at least they have no leisure to read. I would that they would read their book in their baptism; and if they would consider what it ministers to them upon all occasions, they would be far better Christians than they are.”

“Those that cannot read, if they have no other, let them look on these two books, the book of their baptism and the book of consciene. They would be sufficient to instruct them. Some people pretend ignorance. Consider what thou art baptised to the grounds of religion; consider there what thou hast renounced… Those that cannot read, and are not learned, let them make use of the learning of their baptism. There is a world of instruction and comfort, a treasury of it in baptism. I dare be bold to say, if any Christian, when he is tempted to sin, to despair or discouragement, if he consider what a solemn promise he hath made to God in baptism, it would be a means to strengthen his faith, and to arm him against all temptations.”

Richard Sibbes, Works vol. vi pp. 530-1 and vol. vii p. 487

More un-Reformed heresy from the Federal Vision

From Blog and Mablog:

Now the covenant is actually made with all worthy receivers—and worth is defined in terms of faith, not in terms of any kind of self-righteous works. Stated short-hand the covenant is efficaciously made, for blessing, with the elect.

But it does not follow from this that the covenant is invisible, just like the entire body of the elect is invisible. No, the covenant, the terms of it, and the signs and seals of it, are all visible—they are all right here. The word we preach, the gospel we preach, is declared in real time. The water that we baptize with is real water. The wine and bread we consecrate is earthly bread, baked in an oven, and the wine is earthly wine, fashioned by human artifice from the juice of grapes. These are not similitudes for the covenant of grace; they are rather manifestations of the covenant of grace.

Those who have true faith respond to these signs and seals, and are therefore brought to the reality behind them. They are not the ones who bypass the means, on their own going straight to the reality behind them. There are no shortcuts here.

You must travel the road that God has built for you. You will only do so if you believe in Him, trusting Him to keep His promises. But trusting Him to keep the promises He made through Word, Water, and Wine is not the same thing as claiming that He has made no promises in and through such things at all. You must walk, by faith alone, in the way He established. As you do, you will see more and more clearly.

The covenant of grace is made with all the elect, and the extent of that body does not yet appear. There is a good bit of history yet to go, and the ranks of our numbers have a good deal of filling up to do. But those ranks will fill up here, in this world, by the means that God has established. It makes sense to say that the number of the decretally elect belongs to the secret things. But it is unbelief to say that the covenant of grace is secret. Do not say in your heart, who will go up to heaven to get it for us, or who will cross the sea for it. No, the word, the gospel, the covenant, is in your mouth and in your heart. Here, today, and forever.

Sounds good to me.

What Ritual Can Do

There’s a great post from Doug Wilson HERE on baptism as part of his series ‘Welcome to the Reformed faith’, which is well worth a read, dealing with the covenant meaning of baptism, the tension between true and false profession of faith in a fallen world, and how it’s a key that unlocks much of the letter to the Hebrews. Here’s an extract:

Baptism in water is a covenant bond, and, as such, it can easily be compared to putting on the wedding ring in a wedding ceremony. Now nobody thinks that the metals of gold and silver have magic transformative powers — mystically changing the couple in the ceremony into husband and wife. Intention is important, which is why a wedding ceremony on a movie set doesn’t do anything of the kind, even if all the right words are said. In a similar way, a baptism performed on a movie set doesn’t accomplish anything. And yet, at the same time, the ritual of placing water on someone in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is not “just water.” The ritual transforms, but not by any kind of magic. The ritual transforms a person’s status because that is what rituals do. One moment you have a civilian, the next moment, after the ritual, you have a soldier. One moment you have a bachelor, the next moment, after the ritual, you have a husband. Before the ritual he is morally obligated to keep his hands to himself. After the ritual he is morally obligated not to. Before the ritual of water baptism, you have someone who has yet been inducted into the visible church. After the ritual, you do.

And so, we believe that when someone has been baptized in this way, that person is covenantally bound to God. He is obligated. Obligated to do what? To fulfill the terms of the new covenant, which is to repent of all his sins and to believe in Jesus. Nothing more, and nothing less, and even that is a gift of God, lest any man should boast.

Baptismal Regeneration

Does baptism convey regeneration?

The Book of Common Prayer seems to suggest it. In The Ministration of Publick Baptism of Infants, after the baptism and signing with the cross, the minister says:

“Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this Child is regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ’s Church…”

After the Lord’s Prayer, the minister goes on to say:

“We yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this Infant with thy holy Spirit, to receive him for thine own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into thy holy Church.”

Did the Reformers know what they were doing, or is something that has been left over? Does baptism regenerate?

To answer the question, we need to ask, “In what sense?” Is the child regenerate in the sense that they are no longer dead in sins and transgressions but have been renewed in their inner man, such that they are able to live by the Spirit and persevere in faith to the end? Well, no. Or rather, how can we know? Infants can of course possess faith (see Psalms 22 and 71). The problem is, we do not have a pair of glasses that can look into someone’s soul. Can we look at people’s lives? Yes, but unless someone has fallen into gross sin of which they are unrepentant and so is excommunicated and treated as an unbeliever, it is hard to really tell whether or not they are a believer and so are bearing the fruit of the Spirit. From a distance, a tree moving in the wind can either be the result of the wind blowing through its branches, or an invisible man at the bottom shaking it.

In another sense, baptised infants are regenerate. They are sacramentally regenerate. In God’s sovereignty, they have in baptism been given a new birth: they have a new identity, having been named with the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. They are members of a new family. They belong to the people among whom the Spirit works in word and sacrament. They belong to the people which has been sprinkled with clean water and given a new heart and spirit, from which the heart of stone has been substituted for a heart of flesh (cf Ezekiel 36) as symbolised in baptism. A new relationship with God has begun. They are officially regenerate. These are all real privileges. The prayer is that the grace of God in baptism would be met with faith, that what is true of the child in status would be true in their hearts. This will of course only be finally seen on the last day as their faith is shown to be genuine by their perseverance (Hebrews 10.39). In the meantime, the baptised child, like all God’s people, must be called to trust and obey. And until such time as they reject the faith (which we hope they won’t) since we’re not in a position to say what’s going on in their hearts, we, with the Prayer Book, describe baptised children as they are sacramentally and officially: regenerate.

Joel Garver discusses baptismal efficacy and regeneration HERE, HERE and HERE.

See also HERE for an ongoing discussion on the Federal Vision.

The unworthiness of the ministers hinders not the effect of the Sacrament

Good Anglicans will recognize Article XXVI, but the issue goes back to the earliest days of the church.

In 251 there was schism over the election of the next Bishop of Rome. Novatian held that those guilty of murder, adultery and apostasy could not have the remission of their sins pronounced by the church, whereas Cornelius held that the bishop could remit even grave sins. Cornelius won, and Novatian’s supporters slipped away, Novatian having failed to obtain recognition elsewhere.  His followers applied to readmission to communion with Rome and the rest of the catholic church.

What of those who were baptised as part of Novatian’s community? Cyprian of Carthage believed that baptism given outside the sphere of the Spirit-filled community was no baptism - schismatics could not be recognized at all. How can the one lacking the Spirit confer the Spirit’s gifts? At Rome, the new bishop Stephen (254-6) taught instead that by tradition, baptism in water in the name of the Trinity was valid wherever given. Those baptised outside the Church should not be rebaptised but reconciled like penitents within the church. According to him, the sacrament is not the church’s, but Christ’s, and depends not upon the correctness of the minister, but of the form.

This issue was perhaps blown out of all proportion and Stephen denounced Cyprian as Antichrist!

(They also disagreed over the authority of Rome. Stephen as bishop of Rome appealed to the text, “You are Peter…” in order to affirm his position as Peter’s successor and thus supremely authoritative. For Cyprian, in contrast, all bishops are equal as all the apostles were equal, and each answerable to God alone.)

Their controversy was only settled by the death of both parties.

The Sociology of Infant Baptism

Some highlights from the Appendix of The Baptized Body…

A purpose of God in salvation is to reshape us in the image of Christ. Consistent infant baptists treat their children as Christians so that the Christian training of the child occurs simultaneously with the social and cultural nuture of the child, whereas consistent baptists see the child’s Christian life as beginning at a later stage, outside the normal processes of growth and maturation. For the infant baptist, the formation of a Christ-like character is a transformation and restoration of the process of nurture established in creation. So:

“Infant baptism is thus consistent with the more general Reformed insistence that redemption is a renovation of creation spoiled by Adam rather than a new creation ex nihilo.” p. 116

Also:

“Infant baptism imposes a religious identity that the infant has not chosen. As Rowan Williams puts it, it pushes choice to the side. Far from being a weakness, this is one of the strengths of infant baptism for Reformed theology, since it shows that God’s approach to us precedes any response we make. The Divine Gardener loves us, waters us, cares for us, tends us before we can produce a thank offering in return. Infant baptism thus highlights the prevenience of grace.” p. 121

As Calvin recognised, all human beings have faith: true faith or false faith. “Infants are never brought up in a religiously neutral setting, having no religious identity or biases imposed upon them.” p. 122. The logical conclusion of Baptist theology is to say that the religious life and language and culture is something to be added to the culture, language and life of the world around us, a culture which isn’t going to be explicitly Christian or religiously neutral. The child baptised as an infant is separated from its earliest days into a new, Christian culture. “The formative culture is the Christian culture of the church.” p. 134

We need to answer the following question: “Does this culture [of the church] include people in every stage of life, or does it only include those who have reached a certain level of maturity? Is the church a new humanity that includes humans of all levels of intelligence, maturity, and giftedness, or is it more an organization for the religiously interested or the religiously mature?” (p. 133). The infant baptist, with the Bible, I think, says, “Yes,” to the former.

Apostasy and Assurance

On this view of baptism which Leithart advances, we need to accept the reality of apostasy, in which the one who has been baptized and thus united with the historical body of Christ, the church, can then fall away, having experienced what can be described as saving benefits, belonging to the community of people who are priests and kings to God, who are involved in God’s global mission, who are gifted to build up the church, who share in the life of the communion of the saints and the community of the justified, and who are caught up in the work of the Spirit. It is by grasping this that we can pray truly to God with David and the old Prayer Book, “Take not your Holy Spirit from us” (Psalm 51.11).

This makes sense of a number of New Testament passages. There is the parable of the sower, in which the soil falls on rocky ground, representing the one who hears the word, receives it with joy, believes for a while, and in a time of testing falls away. It makes sense of the warnings against apostasy in Hebrews 6, which speaks of those who “have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come” and who then fall away. It also makes sense of 2 Peter 2, which describes the false teachers among the church who deny the Master who bought them as escaping the defilements of the world and know the Lord and Saviour and the way of righteousness. This is consistent with Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 10, who appeals to each member of the historical church at Corinth who “thinks that he stands” to “take heed lest he fall” and to “flee from idolatry” on the basis that all Israel were “baptised” and ate spiritual food and drank spiritual drink which was Christ, and were rescued from Egypt, that is, enjoyed real saving benefits, but many of whom were overthrown because they desired evil and were idolaters and put Christ to the test.

Leithart writes:

“All of these passages [including those referred to above] describe a real, although temporary, experience of favour, fellowship and knowledge of God. These reprobates really were joined to Christ, really were enlightened and fed, really shared in the Spirit, and yet they did not persevere and lost what they have been given. Ultimately, these blessings and gifts are no help… But the New Testament says pretty plainly that they have lost something real, which includes a relationship with the Spirit, union with Christ, and knowledge of the Saviour.” p. 91

Apostasy can take a variety of forms. Leithart takes us through the example of the villain who joins the church in order to disrupt it, Saul who refused to listen to the voice of the Lord’s prophet, and Judas, the son of perdition, the traitor. Each of these can be said to have experienced for a time a real relationship with Christ that cannot be merely described as external. The infiltrator hears Christ speaking to him in the word, shares a meal at the Lord’s Table, has contact with the Spirit through Spirit-filled people, and through his involvement in the work of the church participates in God’s saving action in history. Saul was given the Holy Spirit who changed his heart, for a while. Judas himself was given authority over demons and power to heal, heard Jesus in public and private, ate with Jesus, travelled with him, and was greeted as a friend by Jesus in Gethsemane.

As mentioned in a previous post, Leithart is quick to point out that this is not to contradict classical Reformed teaching:

“What’s at stake here is not, it must be emphasized, to doctrine of election or the Reformed insistence that God not only elects but reprobates all before the foundation of the world. I fully agree with the Reformed tradition on that point.” p. 97

What Leithart is saying is that not only does God ordain the end of every man’s life, he ordains the whole life-story of each and every human being, in the case of the apostate, the final end of death as well as experiencing all the benefits of receiving the word and belonging to the church. God relates to his people in time and God’s relationship with people changes with time as people change, all in accordance with what he has foreordained. As beings bound by time, it is the encounter with God who works in time that is most relevant to our experience, as his view and attitude towards us changes as our response to him changes. The apostate can come into God’s favour, respond with faith, then fall away, cease abiding and fall out of this favour. I would have thought this was obvious from, for example, Jeremiah 18.7-10, but clearly for some this is not.

Where is assurance to be found? Leithart insists, with the Bible that we can have assurance. He takes us through ways in which we might look for assurance - fruit in our own lives produced by the Spirit - joy, love, faith - but how do we know that our joy will last when persecution comes, our love so often falls short, and how do we know our faith is saving faith when it is so often weak? Do we look for some inner experience of the Spirit? How then can we distinguish this from mere self-deception? Looking at ourselves is a blind alley which will only serve to undermine assurance.

The Spirit works through means to assure us that we are God’s and that we are in his love. He promises this in baptism. He promises this when we hear the absolution of sins from Scripture. He promises this in sermons. He promises this at his table. Leithart writes:

“Through these the Spirit woos me, hugs me, encourages me, kisses me, visits me, clothes me, challenges me, rebukes me, convicts me, changes me. There is no doubt that the Spirit is addressing me. I can hear Him speak, though He uses human vocal cords or ink and paper. I have no doubt that I’m included in the “us” that is not separated from Christ, because I heard God include me in that “us.” p. 103

In response to the Spirit speaking in these ways, we are summoned to believe.  How can these things assure us, though, if some who receive the same baptism, hear the same words and eat at the same table fall away, if after believing for a while, believing strongly and believing with joy? Leithart admits that there is mystery here. Those who fall away so so because God determines to turn away from them, and they fail to keep faith. The response that we are called to it to keep faith. Having entered the body of Christ in baptism, we are to trust in and confess Jesus, hear his word, dine at his table, serve his people and seek to live obediently. If we do so, we have nothing to fear. God is kind and merciful even to those with the smallest grain of faith. We are reassured of God’s love every time we hear God address us in word and sacrament. This is not self-trust, since all these forms of abiding in Christ are God’s gifts which are effective by his Spirit. It is only then that we pay attention to God’s declaration that we are forgiven, because if we trusted outselves, we wouldn’t. It is by faith that eating bread and drinking wine achieves its purpose. Perseverance is perseverance and growth in faith. Faith has fruits and faith which alone justifies is never alone, but we never mature from trust to works. Faith, which is nourished and nurtured and grows as we “stick with Jesus”, is the way to assurance.

“Too often the Reformed tradition has degenerated into a morbid form of self-analysis that is actually much closer to medieval piety than to the first Reformers. We are trained to stand outside ourselves and adopt a stance of objectivity in order to examine our performance, the strength of our faith, the consistency of our obedience. If our life matches our profession, then we are assured of our standing in Christ. Then we “know that we know” (1 Jn 2:3). This is not, I think what the New Testament means when it talks about assurance. “Knowing that we know” means experiencing the assurance that we are in a relationship of love - a “knowing” relationship - with God in Christ through the Spirit. We come to this experience of assurance in the midst of our abiding in Christ, not by standing outside our relationship with Christ and evaluating it as outsiders. We come to that experience as we trustingly, believingly remember and improve our baptisms, hear the Word of our beloved Husband, and feast as His Bride at His table.” p. 106

Body of Christ

David Field (unsurprisingly) has read The Baptized Body by Peter Leithart and is enthusing about it, so I had better get my comments in!

I ought to begin by admitting that in the past on this ‘blog. I have made some ignorant comments on what is known as the Federal Vision, of which Dr. Leithart is a proponent, for which I am sorry.

Federal Vision theologians are speaking a different theological language than their counterparts. As I understand it, they are focusing on the outworking of God’s acts of salvation in history, rather than from the perspective of eternal decrees and systematic theology. For a helpful introduction to the issues, reading the conclusions of the Louisiania Presbytery of the PCA in America following an investigation into Steve Wilkins, as David Field reports it HERE.

Leithart is keen to make it clear that this different perspective is not to undermine Reformed theology. For example, he declares his agreement with the Reformed tradition on the doctrine of eternal election and its insistence that God elects and reprobates before the foundation of the world. Leithart and others are concerned to uphold the sola Scriptura principle of the Reformation and make the Bible, not even Reformed tradition, their rule of faith. And as it turns out, what Leithart is saying seems an awful lot closer to Calvin and chums that a lot of what we get today anyway.

The Reformed tradition has tended to distinguish between the visible church (to which baptism admits the recipient) and the invisible church. The visible church is in an external covenant relationship with God; the invisible church is internally in covenant with God. Leithart affirms the value of this distinction: not everyone who is part of the historical community of believers will finally be saved. The problem comes when this is taken to undermine the reality of the visible church as the church of Jesus Christ, as his people. Leithart therefore prefers to distinguish between the historical church and the eschatological church. Actually, as I see it, this complements, rather than contradicts, the classical Reformed distinction. Leithart himself seems to use “visible” and “historical” interchangeably, and the members of the invisible church will only finally be revealed when Christ returns. It can be problematic when reading the epistles to work out whether the elect within the community are being addressed or the community as a whole. But it is much easier with the historical-eschatological distinction to discern what is going on. Anything dealing with a church as a mixed community, with structures, institutions and government, rites and cermonies, is dealing with the historical church. And where “body of Christ” refers to the church, with the possible exception of Ephesians 1.23, it refers to the “visible, historical community of professing believers.” (p. 60) See for example, Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 2 and 4, Colossians 1 and 3. It is this visible historical church which is the body of Christ, united to Christ, the “head” by one Spirit. Leithart writes of the Trinitarian structure of Paul’s description of the unity of the church in Ephesians 4:

“The visible church is united together by its union with the Triune God, by its unity in the Spirit with the Son of the Father.” p. 63

It is into this church that we are incorporated by baptism. So:

“Those who are baptized into the church share in Jesus Christ, and in Him they are introduced into the Triune fellowship of Father, Son and Spirit.” p. 73

In considering what benefits membership of the historical church brings, and thus what baptism brings, Leithart focuses on the issue of soteriology. Again, the difference between the classical Reformed approach and Leithart’s approach is a linguistic issue, and while Leithart affirms the traditional emphasis on our relationship with God and the change in status and nature that occurs when the Spirit works on a person, he also finds that the Bible is much broader in what it says about salvation. To be saved is to be priests and kings to God (Revelation 1.6), a participant in the global mission of the church (Matthew 28.18-20), gifted to edify the church (1 Corinthians 12), to become part of Abraham’s family (Galatians 3.27-29). In that baptism incorporates one into all that, baptism is “saving” in all these senses. He also writes:

“Those who minister in the church have been caught up in the work of the Spirit of Jesus, the saving work of the Spirit of Jesus. They are participating in the salvation of the world. Some who do this might eventually fall by the wayside… but while they are in the church they are sharing the life that is the church’s salvation. When Korah rebelled, the earth opened up and swallowed him, but before that he was a Levite who enjoyed the blessing of salvation from Egypt, drank from the water, ministered before Yahweh, and participated in the life of the redeemed people of God.” p. 75

In the New Testament, baptism is linked to justification (Romans 6.1-7) sanctification (1 Corinthians 6.11?), adoption (Galatians 3) and regeneration (Titus 3.5), inclusion into the renewed humanity and renewed cosmos of Mt. 19.28 which is the body of Christ. To have Christ means to have him and all these elements are facets of our personal union with him. “Righteous” describes an inherent quality of Jesus and a verdict delivered by the Father in the resurrection, and this quality and this verdict becomes ours as we are united to Christ by his Spirit.

The sociology of baptism is “co-involved” with its soteriology. So:

“To be justified… is to share in the life of the justified community, the people whom God regards, because they are in Christ, as “righteous” in his sight. To be a saint is, in this view, to share in the life of the communion of saints. To be adopted is to be among the sons and daughters of the Father, and to be regenerated is to share in the life-in-the-Spirit that simply is the life of the body of Christ. Baptism delivers us from one “culture,” the culture of Adam into a new “culture,” the culture of the Last Adam. Baptism strips off the culture of flesh and inducts us into the culture of the Spirit.” p. 78

Leithart gives us the example of a Muslim convert, which bears repetition in full:

“He comes to baptism with all sorts of familial and religious loyalities. He has lived in a twisted socio-religious world throughout his life, and this has patterned him with certain habits of conduct, and grooved his mind in certain channels of belief and thought. The Spirit works on Him to break through those grooves and to begin regrooving his mind and heart, and the Spirit also empowers him to break through the behavioural habits that have dominated his life and to resist the demonic encouragements that may well go with those habits. But the Spirit does all this through means. The Word is one means; the Spirit re-tools his heart and mind through the Scriptures and preaching. Baptism is another of these tools. Baptism drowns his old loyalities, and as he lives out his baptism, the Spirit progressively kills his old self and renews his loyalities, his commitments, his desires. Remembering his baptism, he remembers that he belongs to Jesus, not to Allah; he remembers that he is called to righteousness, not to sin. The Spirit uses that reminder in his maturation. Baptism also engrafts him into the fellowship of the church, where, led by the Spirit, believers live in humility, gentleness, joy, patience, love. Through the Spirit’s power, he begins to catch the feel of living as a member of the baptized body, begins to breathe the air of joyful liberty and forgiveness, begins to imitate the gentleness and humility of his brothers and sisters. Baptism is one of the means the Spirit uses to regenerate him, to renew him in the image of God.” pp. 79-80

Does baptism require a response from us? Yes - faith. Faith is the proper response to the undeserved favour of being baptised and privileges that it brings. “It is only by faith that we remain in the body of Christ, and only by faith that the water of baptism poured out on the earth of our bodies will bear fruit” (p. 84)

Faith is trust and entrustment, expressing itself in a life of loving, worshipping and following Jesus. It is allegiance to the Son, keeping faith and believing what God says. It is a gift of God and only those who have faith until the end will be saved.

Should we talk to babies?

On the question of infant baptism, Luther and Calvin held together their belief on salvation through faith with infant baptism on the basis that infants can believe. Since faith is the human response of trust towards God, allegience in a personal relationship, and since infants can respond to other persons (they respond to their mother’s voice, they trust their parents, they can distinguish strangers), why can they not trust God, who is nearer than any human being, and whose presence is mediated through his people? Relationship is established through symbols - we talk to our infants, and demonstrate love through gestures such as hugs and kisses. Peter Leithart, in his book The Baptized Body (Canon Press 2007, ISBN 1-59128-048-6), writes:

“As we establish loving and trusting relationship with our infants through symbols, so God speaks to infants and establishes a relation with them through the “visible word” of baptism. Thus the question “Should we baptise babies?” is of a piece with the question “Should we talk to babies?” Paedobaptism is neither more nor less odd and miraculous than talking to a newborn. In fact, that is just what paedobaptism is: God speaking in water to a newborn child.” (p. 10)

Just as there is no irrationality in speaking to a child through they may not understand or fully respond for months, because there is an expectation that the child will learn to understand and respond, so “we baptize infants and consciously remind them of their baptism and its implications so they will come to understanding and mature faith. We name them so they will grow up to respond to that name; we speak to them so they will begin to speak back; we name them in baptism so they will begin to live in and out of baptism.” (p. 11)

Sacraments Do Things To You

On returning to 47 Copse Lane this afternoon from Swindon (where I am currently placed for my Obstetrics and Gynaecology rotation, and which is one reason why ‘blogging has been scant of late), I took possession of The Baptized Body by Peter Leithart (ISBN 1-59128-048-6). This is a short, accessible book on the subject of baptismal efficacy. We shall have to see whether I end up going further in what I say about baptism than I have already (in, for example my post “Baptised into his death“).

Concerns about attributing too much power to water in baptism when interpreting “baptism” in Romans 6 as meaning the water-rite are based on a false belief that created things have efficacy in themselves, some power or force of their own. In reality, all things exist through the sustaining work of the Son who holds all things together. Only the Triune God has efficacy “in itself”.

Not attributing efficacy to the rite of baptism is based on a misunderstanding of the identity of human beings. The false assumption in this case is that our physical being and our spiritual being are completely separate entities. So water baptism can only affect the external part of me. The inner part of me remains untouched. But although the inner and outer man can be distinguished, humans beings are a union of body and soul (which is why the doctrine of the resurrection of the body and the new creation is so important). One affects the other intimately. And so it is not unreasonable to suggest that external events like baptism affects the person as a whole. Other rites affect the whole person - in wedding ceremonies, a single man becomes a husband, for example. It is the whole man who becomes a husband. He is not just externally a husband. Sacraments change reality. Baptism changes who a person is. Leithart writes:

“Whatever else we must say about a baptized person…we can say with utter confidence that he is baptized, that a minister has poured water on his body in the name of the Triune God, and that this is an inrreversible event in his “beginning in the world.” He emerges from the waters of the baptism, and that fact alone means he is a new person. He has received a new name, a new identity, a new past, and he is called to a new future. Abdul [a hypothetical baptizand] is no longer simply Abdul, and he is not simply wet Abdul. Abdul is baptized Abdul. That means the “real Abdul” has been changed.” (p. 7)

The separation between symbol and reality is a false one. This is the case in language. “All language is symbolic because it employs visual symbols or sounds that mean something other than themselves” (p. 19). “Relationships do not exist at all apart from the symbolic and ceremonial exchanges” (pp. 20-21). Applying this to sacraments:

“They are (with the Word and through the Spirit) the matrix of personal communion with the Triune God. The symbolism involved in sacraments is the symbolism of action, less like the symbolism of a painting or a metaphor than the symbolism of a handshake or a wave or a kiss. They are the symbols by and through and in which personal, covenantal relationships are forged and maintained… In all normal circumstances… the invisible features of our relation with God occur within the framework of visible signs, rites, and seals that constitute the covenant. Sacraments are not “signs of an invisible relationship with Christ,” as if a relationship with Christ might occur without them. Rather, the intricate fabric of exchanged language, gesture, symbol, and action is our personal relationship with God.” (p. 21)

Brilliant.

“Baptized into his death”

In Romans 6, Paul in answer to the suggestion that that believers ought to continue in sin that grace may about declares that believers have died to sin and therefore cannot still live in it. This death to sin, Paul says, occurred at baptism when we were united with Christ in his death. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.”

In my experience from Bible studies and sermons, Evangelicals, in their right concern to be wary of teaching sacraments save us ex opere operato as the Romanists erroneously assert, can get a little bit sniffy about Romans 6.3-4. By baptism, we are told, Paul means conversion. So we are reminded that in Paul’s day, baptism closely followed conversion. If someone wanted to become a Christian, they would ask for baptism. (From the New Testament material, we can see that this is of course true, and isn’t there a rebuke here for our tendency to delay the baptism of unbaptised believers for months and even years after their conversion? From what follows, it should be evident that to delay the baptism of an unbaptised believer deprives them of not only a means of great assurance, but also of sanctification.) Or we are told that Paul means the baptism of the Spirit, which occurs at conversion and unites us to Christ. One can imagine someone peering over Paul’s shoulder as he wrote, saying, “I wouldn’t put it quite like that, Paul.”

I think that when Paul says that we were buried with him by baptism into death, he means that we were buried with Christ by baptism into death, plainly and simply the pouring-water-over-you kind of baptism. If Paul meant that we were united with Christ when we believed on him, he would have said so. If he meant that we were united with Christ when we received the Holy Spirit, he would have said so. Paul is saying that at our baptism, we were baptized into Christ’s death, that we were united with him in his death.

He says this, because baptism is the sign and seal of that inward work of the Spirit in the heart of the believer who creates faith in Christ and the union with him that results, proclaiming God’s grace to the recipient, the church and the world. It is, if you like, the official rebirthday of the recipient. That is the day to which we are to look back to see our union with Christ and thus to see that we have died to sin in him and so are no longer to live under its mastery. The Puritans, far from advocating mere individualistic internal piety, affirmed the value of “improving” one’s baptism. It makes sense in light of the widespread experience of Christians that they cannot specify a particular time when they were converted, but that the Spirit of God worked in their lives over an extended period of time.

This is perfectly consistent with the baptism of infants (the propriety of which I intend at some later stage to defend more systematically). The child can be brought up to look back to its baptism, the promises of God which baptism advertises and the death to sin which it proclaims, and thus be summoned to faith and holiness. On that day their public life as a Christian began and to that they must remain faithful.

Oh that we would shake off the fetters of mere private pietism that characterises so much Evangelicalism of the present age, and recover a Reformed view of the importance of baptism which would allow us when we are tempted to sin to say with Luther, when he was lacking assurance, “Baptizatus sum“: I have been baptized.

"God meets us at trysting places" - Sacrament

Having shown how God uses very physical means to minister his grace to us - in the reading, preaching and singing of the word, it should follow that God may use other physical, external means of grace. God likes matter: he made it. (I think that is attributed to C. S. Lewis.) He can work by material means. Is that not most clearly seen in the Incarnation, where the Second Person of the Trinity takes into union with himself a second, human, nature, “for us men and for our salvation.”

A considerable part of our problem with this is that Gnostism has pervaded our thinking, a separation and opposition of the physical and the spiritual. It can so often feature in our preaching. In evangelism, I have heard it said that the soul is “the real you”, which needs saving and which goes on into eternity. No - as human beings we are souls and bodies. I think Dr. Stott uses the phrase “psychosomatic unities”. Salvation applies as much to the body as to the soul. Our salvation is not complete until Christ returns and we are bodily resurrected. And the body with which we will be raised is a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15. 44).

I would like to suggest here, in the light of this, that the sacraments are physical, external means of grace by which God is pleased to work. One wise and godly presbyter remarked to me the other day that sacraments are a special means of grace, not a means of special grace. I think that’s right. God does not give us something through the sacraments that he does not give us through other means. Through his word by faith, we are united to Christ and feed on him, for example. But we mustn’t neglect the sacraments, for those are the means by which God continues to minister his grace to his people.

The Lord’s Supper

When the Lord Jesus instituted the Supper, he designated the bread “my body” and the cup “my blood”. Clearly the bread remained bread and the wine remained wine. Christ’s body and blood were there, standing in front of them. Nevertheless, he called them “my body” and “my blood”. He didn’t say, “This represents my body/blood.” He said, “This is my body and blood.” How can we make sense of this? Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10.16 that the cup and bread are a participation in the blood and body of Christ, or a communion with the body and blood of Christ. When we take bread and wine, we participate in/have communion with Christ’s body and blood respectively. The bread and the wine are the means by which God feeds us with the body and the blood of his Son. Yes we have already fed on the Son when we believed in him through the preached word, and we are united with him so that we dwell in him and he in us. But at the Lord’s Table, by faith, we feed on him afresh and so our union and communion with him is strengthened. Rather than using the physical means of the human voice speaking to our minds and hearts via our ears, God uses the physical means of bread and wine to advertise to our senses - visual, tactile, olfactory and gustatory, as well as auditory - the truths of the gospel - Christ as the bread of life, the bread being his body given for the world, his body broken for us, his blood being poured out for us. And just as we receive the gospel promises proclaimed to us in the Word by faith through the Spirit, so we receive what is promised to us in the elements by faith through the Spirit.

This has a number of implications - it means we should attribute a greater importance to the Lord’s Supper. At the Lord’s Table is where we meet with God and where he really (i.e. in a real way) feeds and nourishes us and our faith and our union and communion with Christ is strengthened. It has implications for frequency of communion. The church at Corinth appeared to eat the Lord’s Supper (or rather they didn’t!) every week on Sunday when they came together (1 Corinthians 11.20 with 1 Corinthians 16.2).

Again, no wonder the early church “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and the prayers…and day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God.” (Acts. 2.42, 46)

Surely we need to recover, if I may put it this way, a healthy devotion to the sacrament. Let us have weekly communion (at least!) in our churches!

Baptism

More briefly, because similar arguments apply, not because it is less important (there was quite a lot of water being poured out in the NT!), baptism is another physical means by which God is pleased to minister his grace to his people. When we read the word baptism in the NT, we often feel we have to put “Spirit” in brackets next to it, to guard against sacramentalism and sacerdotalism. The problem is, the New Testament, while it might teach that there is an outward element (affusion of water) and an inward spiritual grace (union with Christ), it doesn’t tend to distinguish them. So “all of us who have been baptized into Christ have been baptized into his death” and “if we have been united with him in a death like his…” Romans 6.3, 6. “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism” (Colossians 2, 11-12). Baptism is clearly seen as a means by which one is united to Christ and spiritually circumcised. Don’t misunderstand me: I want to affirm that it is “by grace you have been saved through faith” (Ephesians 2.8). But why does this have to be contradictory? Since faith is “not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2.8), and since God uses the physical means of the word being preached in the power of the Spirit to awaken faith in people, why can baptism not be a physical means by which God unites people to Christ, as again it presents gospel truths visibly to the senses, truths which should not go without explanation, by the power of the Holy Spirit, producing faith in the elect? The Westminster Confession of Faith reminds us that the efficacy of baptism is not tied to the moment it is administered, just as I guess, the efficacy of God’s word isn’t restricted to the time that the preacher is speaking.

Baptismal Efficacy

In Colossians 2.8ff, Paul, having essentially summed up the message of his letter in vv. 6-7, proceeds to work through some implications of the doctrine he is teaching. The Colossians, and all Christians, are not to be taken captive by philosophy and empty deceit which is according to human tradition and not according to Christ, because Christians have been filled in Christ, in whom the fullness of deity dwelt bodily. His attention is then drawn to the issue of circumcision. Was there a party in Colossae who said that the Colossians had to accept physical circumsion if they were to be really super-duper Christians (Paul’s repeated theme is growth and maturity, e.g. 1.9, 10, 28; 2.2) or even to be saved? That would certainly be consistent with 2.16. Paul’s point is that the Colossian believers have already been circumcised, not physically, but spiritually, putting off the body of the flesh (i.e. dying according to their sinful nature) by the circumcision of Christ.

What is striking is the means by which Paul says believers have died to sin: being buried in baptism with Christ (v. 12). This is not to say that baptism works ex opere operato as the Romanists suggest. Paul goes on to say that Christian believers have also been raised with Christ, and raised through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Christ from the dead. Baptism works through faith. Individuals are spiritually circumcised in baptism through faith. When the recipient of baptism believes the promises of God as advertised in baptism’s outward, physical sign, God by his Spirit effects the inward, spiritual reality. (In this, baptism thus functions as a visible word.) This also makes sense of other passages such as Romans 6.1-11 and 1 Peter 3.21.

This does seem to be entirely consistent with a Reformed understanding of the teaching of the Bible. Francis Turretin writes:

Our opinion is tht the sacraments do not work grace physically and as if they possessed a force implanted and inherent in them of conferring and effecting grace; but only morally and hyperphysically, inasmuch as they are signs and seals which in their lawful use hold forth and seal grace to believers (God by the power of the Holy Spirit truly performing and fulfilling in them whatever he promises and figures by the signs). Therefore a twofold efficacy is ascribed to the sacraments according to us: the one moral and objective, by which the sacraments make present to our mind that object, to signify and seal which they are destined (by which means, faith is either excited or confirmed and, it mediating, hope and sanctification are increased); the other covenantal, by which God (sealing by the sacraments his promise or covenant) confers the very things promised upon the believing soul or even a greater sense and perception of these already conferred and produces by both greater operations. 19: viii/v

When Scripture says that sins are cleansed, purged, destroyed and washed away in baptism (Eph. 5:26; Tit. 3*:5*), this must be understood not physically, but sacramentally; not absolutely with respect to all the baptized, but only with respect to those who believe (Mk. 16:16). 19: xix/viii

WCF xxviii/vi says:

The efficacy of Baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of the ordinancy, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited, and conferred, by the Holy Ghost, to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongs unto, according to the counsel of God’s own will, in His appointed time.

While on this subject, it is worth banging a drum that I haven’t banged for a little while: it is here that we see the equivalence of baptism and circumcision. The inward reality of burial with Christ of which the physical rite of baptism is a sign is equated with the inward reality of the circumcision of the heart, of which physical circumcision was a sign in the Old Testament. Since circumcision was to be administered in the OT to infants of covenanted believers according to the command of God on the basis of the covenant (Genesis 17.7ff), so baptism is to be administered to infant children of covenanted Christian believers.

A Warning to Fathers

The perils of not applying the covenant sign to your children:

“At a lodging place on the way the LORD met him and sought to put him to death. Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it and said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!” So he let him alone. It was then that she said, “A bridegroom of blood”, because of the circumcision.”

Exodus 4.24-26

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.

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.