A. Introduction:
1. Article XXXIII treated of the sacraments in general; this article discusses the sacrament of baptism.
2. The subject of baptism has always been an important subject in the church. As important as it was at the time when this article was written, it has not decreased in importance today. In fact the same errors which our fathers denounced are still present today.
3. This article was written overagainst:
a. The Roman Catholics who taught that the power of baptism was in the water itself.
b. The Anabaptists who denied infant baptism and insisted on re-baptism.
B. The article lays the basis for the entire doctrine of baptism by emphasizing that baptism has taken the place of circumcision.
1. The argument runs as follows:
a. Christ is the end and fulfillment of the whole law.
b. He is thus the end and fulfillment of the shedding of blood, by His own perfect and bloody sacrifice on the cross.
c. Thus also circumcision, a bloody sign, was abolished.
d. Baptism was instituted in the place of circumcision.
2. The meaning is:
a. Circumcision was an Old Testament sign that God gave to Abraham and his generations to seal the promise of His covenant.
b. Christ instituted baptism when he commanded His disciples to preach to all the world and baptize in the name of the triune God.
c. Circumcision pointed to the necessity of the shedding of blood as an atonement for sin; but since Christ made this atonement the need for a bloody sign passed away. The sign of washing and cleansing took its place.
d. Baptism and circumcision both have the same meaning, i.e., the putting away of sin and the renewal of the heart by grace. Cf. Gen. 17:7, Mt. 28:19, Deut. 30:6, Rom. 4:11, Acts 2:39, Rom. 6:4, Col. 2:11, 12.
C. The meaning of baptism.
1. The sacrament of baptism is first of all an emblem which marks our separation from the world.
a. It signifies that we have been received into the Church of Christ by being separated from all other people and strange religions.
b. It is an ensign and banner of Christ that we carry all our life long.
2. The meaning of the sacrament as a sign and a seal is also explained.
a. We are baptized in the name of the trinity.
b. We are by nature members of the fallen race in Adam, dead in trespasses and sins.
c. Baptism signifies that we are incorporated into Christ-buried with Him into the fellowship of His death, burial and resurrection. By means of this incorporation into Christ we are delivered from the world, from death and guilt, from our own flesh, and brought into the fellowship of God’s covenant-into heaven, life everlasting and righteousness, into the new creation of God. It is as if, carried on the flood of Christ’s blood, we are lifted from the world of the curse to be brought to the harbor of eternity.
d. Thus baptism signifies that as water cleanses from the filth of the body, so does the blood of Christ cleanse from sin and regenerate us from being children of wrath into being sons of God.
e. The Old Testament types of this were the flood and the passage through the Red Sea.
3. This is not affected by the external water, but by the Holy Spirit.
a. The ministers are the called servants of God to administer the sacrament; but only God can give what is signified and sealed, “namely, the gifts and invisible grace; washing, cleansing and purging our souls of all filth and unrighteousness; renewing our hearts, and filling them with all comfort; giving unto us a true assurance of his fatherly goodness; putting on us the new man, and putting off the old man with all his deeds.”
b. These blessings are wrought, not by the power of the water itself, but by the operation of the Holy Spirit. This is written against the errors of Rome, for Rome teaches that baptism cleanses from original guilt and puts a man into such a state of grace that he can either accept or reject the gospel. This is wrought by baptism itself to all who are baptized.
c. These blessings of baptism are not only ours at the moment of baptism but all our life long.
D. The baptism of infants.
1. False views.
a. The error of Anabaptism.
1) The Anabaptists were a sect which was an offshoot of the Reformation. They denied the need of the baptism of infants and insisted on re-baptizing those who were baptized when infants. Hence their name-Ana-(again) baptists.
2) This error has remained until the present in all those who deny the necessity of the baptism of infants. Usually this view is accompanied by a denial of the sovereign character of grace, the truth of the covenant, and the error of pre-millennialism.
b. Others who have taught the baptism of infants have erred in attempting to find a ground for infant baptism.
1) Some have based infant baptism on the doctrine of “presupposed regeneration”; i. e., we must presuppose that all the children of the covenant are regenerated and therefore ought to be baptized. This view is wrong, for we know from Scripture and experience that all baptized children are not regenerated. Besides, it leads to the practical error of failure to discipline sinful people.
2) Others have sought the basis for infant baptism in the objective and yet general and conditional promise of the covenant. They maintained that all infants must be baptized because God’s promise comes objectively to all. Only it comes in a conditional form so that its fulfillment and realization is dependent upon faith. The error of this view is simply that it introduces into the covenant the age-old heresy of Arminianism.
2. The basis for the baptism of infants according to Scripture:
a. The church of the Old and New Dispensation is one Church. This is the basic reason. For proof cf. Gal. 3:7-9, 16-19, 4:1-7; Hosea 1:10, 11 and Romans 9:24-26; Jer. 31:33, 34 and Heb. 10:16. If the Church of both dispensations is one, the covenant is also one. If the covenant is one, the sign of the covenant must also be one although its outward form changes. If the sign is one, as children received that sign in the Old Dispensation, so must they also receive it in the New.
b. God gathers His Church in the line of continued generations. This does not mean that all the children of believers-all who are baptized are saved. But the children of believers are the organism of the people of God although some fall away. Thus all born within the organism must receive its sign.
c. The apostles well understood this truth, for they always baptized houses.
3. Just as with the preaching of the Word, so also baptism is both a savor of life unto life and death unto death.
4. It places both believing parents and their seed under a tremendous obligation, an obligation which they fulfill by grace.