Baptism as a Seal of Saving Blessings

There seems to be a lot of confusion of late surrounding baptism, and more specifically, what kind of salvific blessings can be attributed to the sacrament. In the minds of some, if things like union with Christ or forgiveness of sins are the results of faith, then we mustn’t give baptism any of the credit. After all, we’re not Federal Visionists, right?

I think the Westminster Confession is helpful here. We read in xxviii.6:

The efficacy of Baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet, notwith-standing, by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited, and conferred, by the Holy Ghost....

So it appears that there is a thing called “baptismal efficacy,” but we are cautioned against insisting that baptismal efficacy takes place at the time of baptismal administration. What, then, is baptismal efficacy? In WCF xxviii.1 it says:

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 the newness of life....

Baptism, then, is a seal to the believer of his union with Christ, his regeneration, and the forgiveness of his sins. Now the whole point of a “seal” is that it provides some sort of confirmation or authentication of something. In this case, the seal is baptism, which is meant to function for the believer as that which confirms his participation in the blessings of the entire covenant of grace.

Now here’s the kicker: If the Confession says that the efficacy of baptism is not tied to the moment of its administration, it stands to reason that there is a “moment” to which it is OK to “tie the efficacy of baptism.” Now, we would all agree that that moment is when we exercise saving faith. It follows, therefore, that it is perfectly valid for the believer (who has exercised saving faith), seeing his baptism as the seal of his regeneration, union with Christ, and forgiveness of sins, to attribute to that sacrament the blessings of the covenant of grace. In other words, he can say, “I have been united with Christ through baptism,” or “I have been forgiven of all my sins because I have been baptized.”

To deny this not only demonstrates a person’s suspicion of the language of confessional Reformed theology, but it also leaves him with little to say in response to the sacramental language of Scripture.

The Sign and the Thing Signified: Can You Tell Them Apart?

In Reformed debates about baptism (especially when Federal Visionists are involved), the biggest issue that arises is the degree to which we can echo the New Testament's language concerining the sacrament's efficacy, and how much qualification we need to offer when we do it. Ironically enough, I was recently accused of sounding like a Federal Visionist because of an article I just wrote for Tabletalk in which I said things like, "Baptism accomplishes this" or "Baptism produces that."

Consider these exerpts from Calvin's Strasbourg and Geneva catechisms:

Question: How do you know yourself to be a son of God in fact as well as in name?

Answer: Because I am baptized in the name of God the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Question: Is baptism nothing more than a mere symbol [i.e., picture] of cleansing?

Answer: I think it to be such a symbol that the reality is attached to it. For God does not disappoint us when he promises us his gifts. Hence, both pardon of sins and newness of life are certainly offered and received by us in baptism.

Now, everything in us is screaming that such language sounds way too Catholic (or Moscovite), but we must also admit that it also reflects the language of Scripture itself. Paul says that baptism unites us with Christ in his death and resurrection, Peter says that baptism saves us, and Ananias says that baptism washes away our sins.

How, then, are we to talk about the efficacy of baptism?

I maintain that the answer is found in properly relating the sign to the thing signified. If we can remember to carefully distinguish the outward sign whereby water is sprinkled on a person's head, and the inward reality of the sinner being cleansed by the blood of Christ, then we can go ahead and speak of the one as if it is the other.

There is, in every sacrament, a spiritual relation, or sacramental union, between the sign and the thing signified: whence it comes to pass, that the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other (WCF xxvii.2).

Think of the sign and the thing signified like you would twins: It's only after you've learned to tell them apart that it becomes safe to put them together.

From Eternity to Here: Baptism, Eschatologically Considered

Sometimes we Reformed paedobaptists spend so much time defending the confessional view of the status of covenant children that we forget that baptism is a way bigger topic than merely the mode or subjects of the sacrament. Sure, the sprinkling-water-on-the-baby’s-head part is integral to the baptism discussion, but to focus solely on the mechanics and beneficiaries of baptism is to exalt the trees over the forest, or to change the metaphor, it is to use the microscope to the exclusion of the telescope. To modify the words of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes 3, there’s a time to zoom in, but also a time to break out the wide-angle lens.

Peter’s words to the crowd on the Day of Pentecost have a much broader significance than we often realize:

Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself (Acts 2:38-39).

In a word, what the apostle is inviting his hearers to do is something every bit as cataclysmic and profound as what happened to Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy when they dared to venture through the back of that magical wardrobe into the strange, new world of Narnia. Baptism represents an intrusion of the age to come into this present world, a breaking-in of the dynamic of heaven to the here and now. As the waters are applied, the sky is split and the pavement cracks, and all that we once were is forever changed. William Willimon writes:

In baptism, we are subsumed into a story of water and the word. A story of creation formed out of dark waters. A story of a God so righteous that he was willing to make war on the world he created.... A story of a people, created out of nothing, by a God determined to be worshiped rightly, led through waters into the desert as imperial chariots foundered. A story of a Jewish woman visited by God in a way that confounded her fiancé but caused her to sing. A story of a crazy man out in the desert proclaiming a new kingdom coming in water and fire. A story of One who saved by an issue of water and blood.[1]

The first thing that baptism accomplishes, claims Peter, is giving us a new past: “Be baptized... for the forgiveness of your sins.” The connection between baptism and forgiveness of sins is also made by Ananias in his instruction to the newly-converted Saul of Tarsus: “Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins” (Acts 22:16), and is echoed in the Nicene Creed’s statement that “We believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” “Do you not know,” Paul asks the Romans, “that as many of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” In the same way that Christ “died to sin,” so we who have been united to him participate in that death to all that once defined us.

In addition to giving us a new past, baptism gives us a new family in the present. As Peter’s words in v. 39 indicate, our earthly, familial ties are transcended—and in some cases trumped—by our baptismal union with “all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” Despite our modern and gnostic desire to maintain our personal relationship with Jesus apart from the awkward and inconvenient tie to the church (filled as it is with actual—and often annoying—people), the fact is that we can’t have the Head without the Body. Through baptism we are ushered into the middle of a tale quite long in the telling, a saga having been spun for thousands of years. This redemptive drama began with a married couple, then grew into a family of eight, then a tribe under the leadership of a chieftain, then twelve tribes that grew into a nation ruled by a king, until it eventually expanded into a truly worldwide and catholic Church with members from every kindred, tongue, people, and nation. Paul tells the Galatians that “As many of you as were baptized into Christ Jesus... are all one in Christ” (3:27, 28). And furthermore, whenever God’s people worship, we do so in the presence of this great “cloud of witnesses” together with whom we are summoned into God’s heavenly presence. Patriarchs and prophets, apostles and martyrs, bishops and fathers, sinners and saints—all of them gather with us as we, together with innumerable angels in festal array, get a glimpse (albeit brief) of the glorious banquet at which we will sit with the Mediator of the New Covenant whose bloods speaks a more comforting word than that of Abel (Heb. 12:1, 22-24).

Lastly, baptism bestows upon us a new future. “Be baptized,” Peter insists, “and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (v. 38). The Spirit is always spoken of in the New Testament in terms that hearken us forward to the new age, the age to come that began to dawn on Easter Sunday and will be finally consummated when Jesus returns. “You were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,” Paul writes to the Ephesians, “who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it” (1:13-14). The Greek word that is translated “guarantee” (arrabōn, used in modern Greek for engagement ring) denotes a down payment toward something that will be fully acquired in the future. Through baptism God the Father marks us off as his own, bestowing upon us the Spirit of the age to come whose role is to bring the dynamic of the “not yet” to bear upon the “already.” David Dark writes:

Whether it’s trees clapping their hands, stars falling from the sky, bloody red moons, or crystal seas—it’s as if the new world on the way requires constant re-articulation to best bear witness of its freshness and new-every-morningness, perpetually straining forward to what lies ahead.[2]

One of the ways this “new world on the way” is “re-articulated” in the here and now is through the sacrament of baptism. Living the Christian life, therefore, is tantamount to living the baptized life, for this ancient ritual serves to pull the future into the present, effectively bringing the believer from eternity to here.

[1] William Willimon, Peculiar Speech: Preaching to the Baptized (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 5.
[2] David Dark, Everyday Apocalypse: The Sacred Revealed in Radiohead, The Simpsons, and Other Pop Culture Icons (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2002), 12-13.

A Strange New World, Part One: Baptismal Initiation

I just began a new series of sermons at Exile Presbyterian Church on the topic of baptism called A Strange New World. The first message is titled "Baptismal Initiation," and can be downloaded here.

Enjoy.