Potato Toys for the Times

Western civilization took another step toward a more just society when news outlets reported on Thursday that the toy company Hasbro is rebranding the popular Mr. Potato Head line by dropping the Mr. and simply calling the line Potato Head. Mr. Potato Head has long been a symbol of misogyny, heteronormativity, and white supremacy. Its fans have tried to obscure the oppressive and hateful nature of this icon of the imperialist west for decades by claiming it is only a toy, but those who have awakened to the truth know better. Mr. Potato Head was always a tool for promoting oppression and norms that are antithetical to enlightened society.

Intelligent observers have long noticed that Mr. Potato Head was always mentioned first and never the female variety of the product. Moreover, the female Potato Head was always represented as Mrs., a designation built on 1950s gender and family stereotypes, and never by the more just and socially acceptable Ms. Not only that, but Potato Head figures came in only two genders, grossly distorting the reality that there are more than two genders of potatoes; indeed, there may be dozens or even hundreds, as in the case of people. You never saw two Mr. Potato Heads packaged together as a set, never two Ms. Potato Heads as partners, never an androgenous Potato Head, never a threesome. But this is only the beginning when it comes to describing Hasbro’s vicious promulgation of oppressive and heteronormative paradigms.

Potatoes, as everyone knows, are the only vegetables appreciated and eaten by conservatives bigots, misogynists, and racists. Why? Because potatoes can be baked and sliced open, which is what these people wish to do to everyone who is not like them. Then they stuff the potato with butter that has been literally squeezed from the mammary glands of cows who are kept as slaves and daily groped by their oppressors. These villains also put cheese and bacon inside the potato, which are also products of violence and cruelty to the true possessors of our planet who have been enslaved by human parasites. These people only like potatoes because they can use them as a platform for animal cruelty and for promoting cancer and heart disease. We can only hope more of them get heart disease, which would be a just outcome for the precious pig lives that were lost in service to their gluttony.

Hasbro tacitly acknowledges the vile history of their product by admitting in their press release: “The way the brand currently exists — with the 'Mr.' and 'Mrs.' — is limiting when it comes to both gender identity and family structure.” Thus not only will the line be renamed, the parts will be repackaged and sold in Create Your Own Potato Head Family sets with “enough potatoes and accessories for kids to create all types of families.” Nevertheless, Hasbro said the names of the individual figures of Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head would remain, an indication that though this may be a step in the right direction, it is only a small and entirely inadequate step. It is, at the very least, ignorant and, at worst, a ploy to hide their plan to continue brainwashing children with cisgendered, heteronormative, western values of oppression.

This is unacceptable. Retaining Mr. and Mrs. as names for the two main figures is unjust, abusive, hurtful, and dangerous. The inclusion of moustaches to differentiate potatoes that are naturally androgenous is even more disgusting, especially since so many male oppressors flaunt their masculinity with facial hair as a symbol of their gender inflexibility. But has Hasbro forgotten that women have moustaches too? And not just post-menopausal women but heroic women, women born in male bodies, women who had the courage not to bow the knee to biological systems built on hate but to acknowledge their femaleness when the rest of the world saw maleness. These heroic women have moustaches and penises, just as some heroic men have periods. Hasbro is committing an act of violence by retaining Mr. and Mrs. and the associated accessories to distinguish only these two genders, but their error gets even worse.

The entire Potato Head line, no matter what it is called, is an unredeemable, unforgivable, and thoroughly despicable example of cis-tubered norms. What of the potato that inwardly knows he is really a tomato? Where are the sweet, golden, russet, red, yellow, purple, and fingerling varieties? White potato supremacy is bigotry. Cis-tubered normativity is hatred to cucumbers who sprout in potato bodies. Unless Hasbro is truly willing to apologize for their many decades of evil and commit to listening long and hard to the starches they have oppressed and abused, this rebranding is meaningless posturing. Until that changes, the Potato Head line and Hasbro as a whole should be cancelled. --JME

Apologizing for God's Word

Max Lucado has demonstrated his humility, sincerity, and piety by publishing a letter apologizing for a sermon from 2004. His letter of repentance was written in response to public outrage over his recent invitation to preach at the National Cathedral. You can read the full text of the letter HERE. I am copying the substance of his confession so as not to take his remarks out of context.

In 2004 I preached a sermon on the topic of same-sex marriage. I now see that, in that sermon, I was disrespectful. I was hurtful. I wounded people in ways that were devastating. I should have done better. It grieves me that my words have hurt or been used to hurt the LGBTQ community. I apologize to you and I ask forgiveness of Christ.

Faithful people may disagree about what the Bible says about homosexuality, but we agree that God’s holy Word must never be used as a weapon to wound others. To be clear, I believe in the traditional biblical understanding of marriage, but I also believe in a God of unbounded grace and love. LGBTQ individuals and LGBTQ families must be respected and treated with love. They are beloved children of God because, they are made in the image and likeness of God.

Over centuries, the church has harmed LGBTQ people and their families, just as the church has harmed people on issues of race, gender, divorce, addiction, and so many other things. We must do better to serve and love one another.

I share the Cathedral’s commitment to building bridges and learning how to listen -- to really listen -- to those with whom we disagree. That work is difficult, it is hard, it is messy, and it can be uncomfortable. But we need it now more than ever.

Lucado also published an article on Crosswalk.com in 2004 entitled “What God Says About Gay Marriage.” Crosswalk has since removed that article at the author’s request.

Notice that Lucado describes his sermon as disrespectful, hurtful, and devastating. One can only imagine the harsh pejoratives, mocking, and calls for violence that must have been used in that sermon to warrant this kind of repentance. Fortunately, the Internet has been purged of this hateful teaching, so we cannot confirm the original content that was objectionable, but it has not been alleged that Lucado made any such statements in his prior teaching. Instead, he has been criticized for “his comparison of same-sex marriage to legalized polygamy, bestiality and incest and his suggestion that homosexuality is something that can be changed by pastoral care” (Episcopal New Service). No doubt these despicable comparisons were based on Leviticus 18 which condemns homosexuality alongside incest and draws a close comparison between homosexuality and bestiality in verses 22-23:

You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. Nor shall you mate with any animal, to defile yourself with it. Nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. It is perversion.

Abomination and perversion are strong words, and evidently, this is the kind of comparison and language Lucado is now repenting of and seeking forgiveness for having used.

Lucado affirms a number of things in his letter that Christians ought to carefully mark. First, “faithful people may disagree about what the Bible says about homosexuality.” Faithful people. In other words, a particular view of homosexuality is not required for faithfulness or orthodoxy. Presumably you can affirm homosexuality as a sexual orientation or moral lifestyle and still be regarded as faithful by Max Lucado, who as a minister claims to speak for God. Thus the gospel would not involve the moral transformation of homosexuals who may be faithful and still retain their former opinion of a homosexual lifestyle. Second, note that Lucado recognizes and affirms the “LGBTQ community” including “LGBTQ individuals” and “LGBTQ families.” In other words, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer are categories of personal identity and personhood. These are not disordered desires, temptations, or behaviors. They are persons, families, and a distinct community that is to be acknowledged within the broader society. Third, Lucado claims to still “believe in the traditional biblical understanding of marriage,” but says he also believes “in a God of unbounded grace and love.” Presumably the unbounded grace of God extends even to those who make bigoted and hurtful comparisons between homosexuality and bestiality, men like Max Lucado… and Moses. Fourth, Lucado confesses that “over centuries, the church has harmed LGBTQ people and their families.” Perhaps he has in mind Christian societies that outlawed and punished sexual deviancy in the past, or he may have in mind the harm created by centuries of teaching passages like Romans 1:26-27 which describes homosexuality as vile passions, shameful behavior, and worthy of God’s judgment. Fifth, Lucado says he is now committed “to building bridges and learning how to listen -- to really listen -- to those with whom we disagree.” In other words, having admitted his shame over what he previously said about homosexuality and how the Bible characterizes it, Lucado is now ready to listen and learn from homosexuals how he ought to think about, speak about, and view them.

Whether this confession and repentance will satisfy Lucado’s critics remains to be seen, but we ought to point out that it does not go nearly far enough. If I may venture to help my brother, allow me to add to his confession and repentance.

We would like to apologize for Moses who wrote at least five books of the Bible that are full of hateful and hurtful stories, laws, and language which describe God drowning a world full of wicked men and women, burning cities for practicing sodomy, and directing the Israelites to commit acts of genocide in making war against the Canaanites. We are sure god would never do or say any of these things, and we wish to repudiate any association with Moses and anyone who might say otherwise in claiming to speak for god.

We would also like to apologize for the historical literature of the Old Testament which is full of brutality, condemnation of alternative lifestyles and sexual minorities, and promotes Hebrew nationalism. We recognize that glorifying this kind of history is unworthy of the Christian religion, and we repent of and repudiate any association with it or those who have promoted it by means of uncritical historical narration.

We would like to apologize for David, Solomon, and the other contributors to the collection of wisdom literature in the Hebrew Bible. We recognize prayers for the judgment of the wicked and songs celebrating the day when God does so are incompatible with Christian ethics. We are sure Jesus would never endorse such vile hymnody, and therefore we reject every alleged citation of the Psalms by Jesus as spurious interpolations. We repent and repudiate the books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes and also the Song of Songs because, even though we’re not entirely sure what it is about, we’re fairly confident it objectifies women through cisgendered, heteronormative assumptions about society.

We would like to apologize for the Old Testament prophets, all of them, from beginning to end. Where do we even start? The repeated use of whore to describe Israel’s alternative religions is demeaning to professional sex workers and those who imitate their lifestyle. Referring to women as cows is never appropriate, and we think Amos should be ashamed of himself. Time would fail us to repent line by line of every disgusting thing that was said by these men, but let it suffice to note that all of the prophets whose books were included in the Bible were men, and no further evidence is needed of bias and bigotry than the exclusion of women, trans, queer, and androgenous voices. We repent of and repudiate the entire Old Testament and deny any portion of it ought to be retained or redeemed.

We would also like to apologize for most of the New Testament. We love Jesus, but we hate what the Bible has made him out to be. We are sure that our god would never do or say the things wicked Christians have alleged in the Scriptures. We repent of the presentation of Jesus in the Gospels, though we do enjoy when he smacks down the religious leaders; that part is okay. But the notion Jesus would uphold cisgendered, heteronormative relationships is clearly historical revisionism based on 1950s gender stereotypes. We are confident Jesus would never refer to a Syro-Phoenician woman as a dog or recite any portion of the Ten Commandments as if it were an abiding standard for ethics. Furthermore, we reject the notion Jesus died on the cross as a divine punishment for human sins. Such a doctrine is morally repugnant and unworthy of the true character of god who would never hurt anyone or require punishment for anything. We are confident Jesus died on the cross for loving and accepting all people as they were and that the religious leaders killed him in order to protect oppressive economic and social structures and maintain systemic racial and sexual abuse. The rest of the New Testament is hardly worthy of comment. Paul’s misogyny and homophobia are well-known and despicable. We know Peter’s xenophobia, and while we like much of what the apostle John says in his letters about love, we cannot allow a platform to anyone who would be associated with the Book of Revelation. Such a militant view of the Church and violence perspectives on judgment are intolerable, so we repent of, repudiate, and cancel all of the apostolic writings and disclaim any association with them.

Upon careful review of the Christian Scriptures, we find only one portion that does not appear to be tainted, if not altogether corrupted, by hateful, bigoted, cisgendered, heteronormative, racist, capitalist, and oppressive paradigms concerning sin, salvation, ethics, and judgment. That single portion is found in Matthew 7:1: Judge not, that ye be not judged. Admittedly, even this must be qualified lest anyone apply it to the judgment of those we deem bigoted, hateful, unenlightened, and subversive, but given proper contextualization and application guided by more enlightened norms, we believe this verse can be redeemed, retained, and repurposed in service to a kinder, gentler, and more moral Christian faith.

Max Lucado did not apologize for mocking homosexuals. He did not repent of acts of violence. He did not seek forgiveness for intentional cruelty. He apologized for drawing the same comparisons that are given in Scripture between homosexuality and other forms of sexual immorality. He repented of causing offense by describing homosexuality as a perversion of divine design. He sought forgiveness for the harm he caused by repeating what Scripture says.

Once you begin apologizing for what Scripture says, you might as well repent of being a Christian. There is no logical place to stop. But American Christians, including many conservative evangelicals, have been apologizing for the Old Testament for a very long time, and many of them are now apologizing for important features in the New Testament and for traditional Christianity. A traditional view of gender roles is now characterized as misogyny, and we must apologize for and repent of it. A traditional view of sexuality is characterized as bigotry, speech against sexual minorities is a form of violence, and we must repent of it, shut up, and be re-educated on how to think and speak about these issues. If you apologize for Paul sending Onesimus back to Philemon and telling wives to obey their husbands, then it won’t be long before you apologize for his characterization and condemnation of homosexuality and then for the idea that only through trusting in Christ can a person be saved. You may think your humble, gentle, more enlightened Christian faith will never go that far, but if yours doesn’t, then your children’s certainly will.

Max Lucado’s letter is incomprehensible in relation to Scripture and historic, orthodox Christianity. It is an example of the kind of misplaced humility Chesterton decried a century ago.

“What we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert—himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt—the Divine Reason.” --G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

We began by stating that Max Lucado had demonstrated his humility, sincerity, and piety by publishing a letter of apology, but what he demonstrated is that it is in all the wrong places, or that he has none. I pray Max Lucado repents of his repentance. He should be removed from the ministry for it. The Church does not need anymore apologizers and compromisers in her pulpits. We have quite enough of those already. We do not want men to apologize for what Moses wrote, David sang, or Paul preached. We do not need men who apologize for being male. We have enough pansies in the pulpit, goats who try to bleat like sheep, wolves whose fleece hoodie keeps slipping and revealing their nose. It is time for Christians in general, and ministers in particular, to play the man (1Cor. 16:13). Be a man, be brave and strong, or get out of the pulpit, and keep your mouth shut.

GOD, give us men! A time like this demands

Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;

Men whom the lust of office does not kill;

Men whom the spoils of office can not buy;

Men who possess opinions and a will;

Men who have honor; men who will not lie;

Men who can stand before a demagogue

And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!

Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog

In public duty, and in private thinking;

For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,

Their large professions and their little deeds,

Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,

Wrong rules the land and waiting Justice sleeps.

--Josiah Gilbert Holland

--JME 

Opposition Born of Envy

It’s really unfortunate, tragic even, that he has such a popular and multi-faceted ministry. If people only knew what I know about him. But sheeple… errr… people simply lack the discernment they really need to understand what I know. If only they had my wisdom, ability to analyze, concern for the Church, passion for orthodoxy, and humility, but clearly the Lord did not bless them to the extent he has me. Of course, I am unworthy, very unworthy to be sure, but undeniably gifted, clearly more than most, and if more people listened to me, the Church would be so much better off. I could help them identify the wolves and the goats, the speckled and spotted sheep that really belong in that other flock, and the sheep with those weird tufts of hair sprouting out of their ears. Someone really ought to do something about them. If only they would listen to me, they would understand he ought not to be popular.

He’s only popular because people lack my discernment, and because he tickles their ears. If I preached what people wanted to hear, I could have a big platform too. He’s not even a good speaker. He structures his sermons all wrong. And his demeanor is positively undignified; no one can argue otherwise, at least, if they listened to me they wouldn’t. Anyone who has that many people in his church and sells that many books must be a compromiser. I know he is, because a pastor I know and a seminary professor and my really confident friend on Facegram who I’ve never met but who seems to know a lot about theology agrees. He’s bad news, and there’s no doubt about it. If he wasn’t a false teacher, sincere and charitable saints wouldn’t say bad things about him.

Oh, I know he pretends to be orthodox and preach hard lessons. They all do that. But I see through it. Behind a thin veneer of historic, ordinary, confessional orthodoxy, he’s really a slippery infralapsarian. It’s not so much what he says. It’s that he doesn’t say it in the way he should. The way I do, for example, though of course the way I express it isn’t the only way truth can be stated. Certainly not. There are plenty of synonyms you might use, just so long as I agree that they really are synonymous, because a lot of synonyms are not, you know.

For he knew that the chief priests had handed Him over because of envy. (Mark 15:10)

False teachers frequently do have large churches, financially successful ministries, and the esteem of ignorant people. They do wrap themselves in a facade of orthodoxy while denying its essence and implications. They can and should be identified, corrected, and then denounced by the faithful Church.

But I wonder how often preachers are identified as no-good, horrible, very bad men because of the arrogance and envy of their critics. I wonder how often I have been guilty of doing so. Maybe it never happens, but evidence seems to suggest otherwise. I can’t judge anyone’s heart, and I dare not trust my own. But God knows the truth, and if our criticism is rooted in envy, then it is slander and sin. May God grant us the wisdom to see it and the courage to repent of it. --JME

Whether to Repent of Lent

This week is the beginning of Lent, a forty day fast in preparation for the Lord’s resurrection, a season also characterized, at least online, by forty days of parody, pointed criticism, and conflict between believers who observe Lent and Reformed Christians who reject it. Lent is an ancient practice, already well-established by the Council of Nicea in AD 325. But it grew increasingly corrupt during the medieval period, and the Reformers criticized it as one part of a larger system of tradition and superstition that was without biblical warrant. Many of the Puritans rejected it altogether, along with the rest of the Church’s traditional calendar. Reformed believers today are divided on the propriety and usefulness of the tradition, and that division is sometimes sharp and even personal.

I have never observed Lent, and I am not recommending the practice here. I would vigorously oppose its establishment as a required service in our congregation, regarding that as an unbiblical intrusion upon liberty of conscience. I can tell my congregation it is God’s revealed will for them to gather for worship on the Lord’s Day. I cannot make the same claim for Ash Wednesday or any special Lenten service. The religious calendar in the New Covenant is much simpler than the Old Testament Church or the medieval Roman system. The New Covenant calendar has one holy day on it, and it comes around fifty-two times each year.

At the same time, I do not interpret the Regulative Principle in such a way as to forbid the Church or individuals setting aside special days and seasons of lamentation, repentance, prayer, and worship. The OPC Book of Church Order rightly affirms:

Under the gospel, we are commanded to keep no other particular day holy, except the Lord's Day. Nevertheless, God's people may observe special occasions as the dispensations of God's providence administer cause and opportunity. Such observance is both consonant with Scripture and pastorally appropriate. (DPW V)

Prayer and fasting may be observed by private individuals and families at their discretion or by the Church at the discretion of the appropriate judicatory. (DPW V.A.5)

It is especially appropriate on days of prayer and fasting called by the Church that the people of God gather for a time of prayer, the singing of psalms and hymns, and the reading and preaching of the Word of God. Let them lament their distress or unworthiness before the Lord, confess their sins, humbly implore the Lord for deliverance from the judgment present or imminent or for the blessing sought, and commit themselves anew to the faithful service of the Lord their God. It is fitting on such days that God's people abstain from food and from such activities as may distract from their solemn engagement in prayer. (DPW V.A.4)

My heartfelt desire and ambition is to be biblical, orthodox, catholic, and reformed. I grew up in and eventually left a tradition that prided itself on being unlike every other Christian tradition through most of the last two thousand years. I have no desire to ever be part of such a tradition again. The Scots Presbyterian Church is not the only Reformed tradition, and its antipathy toward the evangelical feast days is an unnecessary, and arguably unhelpful, custom. We can be unapologetically Reformed and unwaveringly committed to sola Scriptura while admitting our relation to the broader, historic Church and marking significant days in redemptive history. We can and should critique and reject practices that are contrary to the revealed religion of Christ, even while making careful distinctions lest we mistake a sermon on Christ’s resurrection in April as akin to addressing the pastoral prayer to the Virgin Mary.

Scripture is our ultimate and final authority, but we receive, read, and respond to Scripture within the community, history, and tradition of the Church. If our interpretation of the Bible is unprecedented or contrary to the majority report across multiple traditions throughout most of the Church’s history, we need to carefully re-examine our conclusions. At the end of the day, nothing is right because it is old or adopted by most. Scripture is the test of orthodoxy. But Christ promised to build and preserve his Church (Matt. 16:18), and we can trust that his Church, though imperfect, has endured in faith and worship throughout time.

Lent is certainly an ancient and widely attested tradition. It is not a biblically commanded one. It may be lawful for a believer to observe Lent in humbling himself before Christ, but it should not be practiced at the expense or to the neglect of the reading of the Law and confession of sin on the Lord’s Day and the daily examination and repentance in which the Psalms lead us. Piety begins with and continues in obedience. Whatever else may be helpful as an aid to a life of worship, that life must always be grounded in what the Lord commanded. --JME

Resources

Michael Horton offered a few thoughts on the subject in 2010. His comments are balanced and helpful.

Jonathan Landry Cruse asked appropriate questions in Modern Reformation in 2020.

James Merrick’s response to Carl Trueman and the latter’s rejoinder in 2015 is an informative exchange. You can find those pieces HERE and HERE (and the original essay by Trueman, which I think is less helpful, HERE).

Still a Paedo-Baptist

I like to think I can anticipate most of the questions and objections that will be raised in response to particular sermons. While preparing for this most recent series on baptism, I was already arming myself for questions and expressions of alarm. The view of baptism in some Reformed and Presbyterian churches isn’t very different than what you find in most evangelical and Baptist congregations, so I was prepared for concerns to be raised that what I was saying sounded Roman Catholic or affirmed an unbiblical form of baptismal regeneration. I even thought someone might claim my Church of Christ heritage was tainting my view of the sacrament. This expectation is why I spent time last week assembling quotes from Calvin in order to demonstrate my consistency with the Reformed tradition. Many people whose heresy meter is calibrated by Facebook might be shocked at how Calvin and other Reformers speak of the sacraments. The 19th and 20th centuries weakened the Reformed Church’s understanding of these issues in many ways.

During the lesson I repeatedly clarified and emphasized that Christ’s saving benefits are only received through faith because I expected people would be concerned I was advocating baptismal regeneration. But after the service, a couple of brothers asked me, in a good-natured way, whether I was leaning back toward a credo-baptistic view. My response involved a puzzled expression and a fairly unintelligent and inarticulate: Huuh? So much for anticipating possible questions. I have to admit, I didn’t see that one coming.

I will have a lot more to say about the propriety of baptizing covenant children (including infants) in the next few weeks. What I said about baptism in the first lesson of this most recent series ought to be admitted by all believers, whether they baptize infants or not. But let me note a few things in case others hearing the lesson had the same questions after the service.

First, everything we observed about the relationship between baptism and salvation, all of the promises and work of grace which baptism communicates and confirms, is signified and sealed in the baptism of covenant children. We were discussing the objective significance of the sacrament, and that significance remains whether the recipient is a mature confessor or an infant possessor. Even if a child proves to be a reprobate--which ought never to be assumed--the meaning of baptism remains. There were many non-elect persons in Israel, but their circumcision still testified to the promise and work of Christ.

Second, the baptism of covenant children does not rest on the assumption of their regeneration, but we should not assume their election and regeneration is in doubt. We baptize our children because Scripture teaches us to do so, but many Reformed and Presbyterian Christians seem to think like Baptists when it comes to their kids, waiting to see if they will make a decision for Christ. But the children of believers are already saints (1Cor. 7:14)--the same word in Greek used to identify mature confessors. God promises the Holy Spirit to them (Acts 2:39). They belong to the kingdom of God (Luke 18:16). They are in the Lord (Eph. 6:1). Your child’s spiritual status is not in question. Their status is not merely potential; it is actual and covenantal. Does this mean every child of a believer will prove to be eternally elect unto salvation? No, some children will prove to be Esau, Ahab, or Judas. But this should never be assumed of any child, much less be the assumption regarding every child unless and until they prove otherwise.

Third, the application of baptism (as circumcision in the OT) is a rather conclusive proof that God is working faith in the hearts of covenant children long before most parents realize. Read again all of the passages and allusions we saw concerning baptism’s relationship to salvation. It unites us to Christ, cleansing, quickening, and sanctifying the soul. The Holy Spirit came upon John in the womb and caused him to leap for joy (Luke 1:41-44). The Psalmist trusted Yahweh while feeding at his mother’s breast (Psa. 22:9). The Lord works faith in his people from their birth (Psa. 71:5-6). Some covenant children may have a dramatic “conversion” after a period of rebellion and disobedience, but we should not assume our children need to be converted but rather assume the seed of faith has already been planted within them and trust that it will, by grace, under the ministry of gospel parenting and preaching, grow into a mature and articulate trust in the living God. Baptism does not impart the spiritual blessings it signifies and seals apart from faith, but neither is it a mere memorial of what Christ will do if a person of ripe age and sound mind chooses to cooperate. Baptism is a means of grace, and “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 belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God's own will, in his appointed time” (WCF 28.6). We are not waiting for our children to decide to become Christians. We baptize them because that is what and who they are. --JME

Calvin on Baptism

I am edified every time I read Book IV Chapter 15 in Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. It is the first of two chapters in the Institutes in which Calvin expounds the doctrine of baptism. It is a chapter that could have corrected many misunderstandings I had of the sacrament in my youth and early ministry. It continues to instruct, enlighten, and encourage me as I seek to grow in understanding, consistency, and biblical fidelity with regard to the rite.

Calvin was a prolific author, preacher, and commentator, so no single chapter, in the Institutes or anywhere else in Calvin’s body of work, can be thought to be the sum of his perspective and teaching on any given topic. But his treatise on baptism in Institutes IV.15 is exceedingly helpful in grasping the logic, unity, and theology of baptism he sees in Scripture.

As I reread the chapter this week in preparation for preaching on baptism this Lord’s Day, I was struck, yet again, by a sense of my own inadequacy in handling this (and every other) Christian doctrine. I am tempted simply to read the relevant Scripture references, then Calvin’s comments, and then close with prayer. I have no ambition to add to what Calvin already said so well, and I find very little room for its improvement.

Nevertheless, God called me to be a preacher and not merely a reader, so I will not be substituting Calvin’s words for my own exposition. But in commending the chapter to you, let me highlight several portions that are particularly insightful, helpful, and sweet to the soul of those who trust in the Christ whose Name was placed upon them in baptism.

(All of the following quotations are from Beveridge’s translation of the Institutes that is in the public domain. My apologies to all who prefer Battles. This one is easier to copy and paste.)

Baptism is the initiatory sign by which we are admitted to the fellowship of the Church, that being ingrafted into Christ we may be accounted children of God. (15.1)

We ought to consider that at whatever time we are baptised, we are washed and purified once for the whole of life. Wherefore, as often as we fall, we must recall the remembrance of our baptism, and thus fortify our minds, so as to feel certain and secure of the remission of sins. For though, when once administered, it seems to have passed, it is not abolished by subsequent sins. For the purity of Christ was therein offered to us, always is in force, and is not destroyed by any stain: it wipes and washes away all our defilements. (15.3)

Christ by baptism has made us partakers of his death, ingrafting us into it. (15.5)

For in this way also he promises us in baptism, and shows by a given sign that we are led by his might, and delivered from the captivity of Egypt, that is, from the bondage of sin, that our Pharaoh is drowned; in other words, the devil, although he ceases not to try and harass us…. The cloud was a symbol of purification (Num. 9:18). For as the Lord then covered them by an opposite cloud, and kept them cool, that they might not faint or pine away under the burning rays of the sun; so in baptism we perceive that we are covered and protected by the blood of Christ, lest the wrath of God, which is truly an intolerable flame, should lie upon us. (15.9)

Believers become assured by baptism, that this condemnation is entirely withdrawn from them, since (as has been said) the Lord by this sign promises that a full and entire remission has been made, both of the guilt which was imputed to us, and the penalty incurred by the guilt. They also apprehend righteousness, but such righteousness as the people of God can obtain in this life—viz. by imputation only, God, in his mercy, regarding them as righteous and innocent. (15.10)

Baptism, indeed, tells us that our Pharaoh is drowned and sin mortified; not so, however, as no longer to exist, or give no trouble, but only so as not to have dominion. For as long as we live shut up in this prison of the body, the remains of sin dwell in us, but if we faithfully hold the promise which God has given us in baptism, they will neither rule nor reign. (15.11)

We ought to hold that we are baptised for the mortification of our flesh, which is begun in baptism, is prosecuted every day, and will be finished when we depart from this life to go to the Lord. (15.11)

Hence he teaches that those whom the Lord has once admitted into favour, and ingrafted into communion with Christ, and received into the fellowship of the Church by baptism, are freed from guilt and condemnation while they persevere in the faith of Christ, though they may be beset by sin and thus bear sin about with them. (15.12)

Baptism serves as our confession before men, inasmuch as it is a mark by which we openly declare that we wish to be ranked among the people of God, by which we testify that we concur with all Christians in the worship of one God, and in one religion; by which, in short, we publicly assert our faith, so that not only do our hearts breathe, but our tongues also, and all the members of our body, in every way they can, proclaim the praise of God. (15.13)

For inasmuch as it is appointed to elevate, nourish, and confirm our faith, we are to receive it as from the hand of its author, being firmly persuaded that it is himself who speaks to us by means of the sign; that it is himself who washes and purifies us, and effaces the remembrance of our faults; that it is himself who makes us the partakers of his death, destroys the kingdom of Satan, subdues the power of concupiscence, nay, makes us one with himself, that being clothed with him we may be accounted the children of God. (15.14)

But from this sacrament, as from all others, we gain nothing, unless in so far as we receive in faith. (15.15)

God in baptism promises the remission of sins, and will undoubtedly perform what he has promised to all believers. That promise was offered to us in baptism, let us therefore embrace it in faith. In regard to us, indeed, it was long buried on account of unbelief; now, therefore, let us with faith receive it. Wherefore, when the Lord invites the Jewish people to repentance, he gives no injunction concerning another circumcision, though (as we have said) they were circumcised by a wicked and sacrilegious hand, and had long lived in the same impiety. All he urges is conversion of heart. For how much soever the covenant might have been violated by them, the symbol of the covenant always remained, according to the appointment of the Lord, firm and inviolable. Solely, therefore, on the condition of repentance, were they restored to the covenant which God had once made with them in circumcision, though this which they had received at the hand of a covenant-breaking priest, they had themselves as much as in them lay polluted and extinguished. (15.17)

Our children, before they are born, God declares that he adopts for his own when he promises that he will be a God to us, and to our seed after us. In this promise their salvation is included. None will dare to offer such an insult to God as to deny that he is able to give effect to his promise. (15.20)

Hence it follows, that the children of believers are not baptised, in order that though formerly aliens from the Church, they may then, for the first time, become children of God, but rather are received into the Church by a formal sign, because, in virtue of the promise, they previously belonged to the body of Christ. (15.22)

There are two places in the chapter where I take issue with Calvin’s analysis, and I freely admit my dissent may be due to my own ignorance rather than the author’s error. Nevertheless, Calvin was an uninspired man, even if very inspiring, and so is subject to biblical critique and correction the same as any exegete or expositor today. I remain unconvinced by his handling of Acts 19:1-7 and continue to believe these disciples were baptized (a second time) with water. It seems to me Calvin’s historical context may have prevented him from admitting this due to the debates surrounding re-baptism of those who had first received the sacrament from Rome. I also am unpersuaded by his comment in IV.15.19 that “the term baptize means to immerse, and that this was the form used by the primitive church.” The word certainly can mean that and does in certain passages from antiquity. Immersion was practiced by some in the ancient church, not all, but whatever the earliest mode may have been is not ultimately authoritative for the Church’s practice today. Calvin is not arguing that immersion is essential to the proper administration of baptism as most Baptists do. But his comment is based upon a failure to distinguish between the meaning of a term and the semantic range of a word. Immersion is certainly encompassed in the latter with regard to the various Greek words related to baptism. Whether it is properly identified as the former depends entirely on the context in which it appears. --JME