Roman vs. Re-formed Catholicism

Roman Catholicism is a deficient and degraded form of the apostolic faith. In many struggles with secularism and Marxism, conservative Protestants and conservative Catholics will often be found to have common cause as co-belligerents, but we should be aware that there is no fellowship between the light and truth of the evangelical, apostolic witness affirmed by the churches of the Reformation and the idolatry and errors of the Papacy and those congregations who render obedience to its Bishop who claims to stand in the place of Christ on earth.

Sometimes visitors to RPC remark on certain aspects of our liturgy that seem “Catholic.” It’s true that we desire to be catholic in the very best way, with a small “c,” describing the historical and universal faith of the Christian Church established by Christ on the teachings left to us by the apostles. We have little in common with big box mega-churches that structure their worship as part rock concert, part Ted talk, and part Time Share presentation. We do not believe the Church is a business or ought to be run as a consumer-oriented enterprise. The Church is the household of God, the Bride of Christ, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and everything about it ought to be otherworldly, because it is. C. S. Lewis wrote in his Preface to Paradise Lost:

“The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender’s inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.”

There certainly are things that seem strange about our worship in comparison to modern evangelicalism. The pastor wears robes in the pulpit and a collar among the people. The congregation stands at stated times and participates vocally and loudly throughout the worship service. There is a large amount of Scripture read throughout the service as well as the singing of psalms and the use of common prayers from the Church’s history. If Sundays at RPC feel differently than everything else in our lives, that’s because they are different. In corporate worship, God is meeting with us to renew his covenant and bless us. We are ascending into the heavenly realm to worship alongside the true catholic (universal) Church composed of believers in Jesus from among all tribes and nations and generations.

We do not do anything in worship simply because it seems more “Catholic.” We are re-formed catholics, Christians who desire to be part of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church that is formed and continually reformed by the Spirit in obedience to the teaching of Scripture. We owe no allegiance, and will show no deference, to the Roman Pope, who as a eunuch is no one’s father, certainly not ours. We adore our sister Mary, the mother of our Lord, but refuse to pray to her or to any other saint who has passed into heaven. We affirm and celebrate the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but there is no crucifix in our sanctuary because we do not regard the Lord’s Supper to be a re-presentation of his once for all offering but the New Covenant fulfillment of the Peace Offering in which we celebrate our reconciliation to God. Nor do we imagine the bread and wine to be transformed by any priestly ritual, instead being content with the teaching of Scripture as summarized by the Belgic Confession:

“But to maintain the spiritual and heavenly life that belongs to believers he has sent a living bread that came down from heaven: namely Jesus Christ, who nourishes and maintains the spiritual life of believers when eaten— that is, when appropriated and received spiritually by faith. To represent to us this spiritual and heavenly bread Christ has instituted an earthly and visible bread as the sacrament of his body and wine as the sacrament of his blood. He did this to testify to us that just as truly as we take and hold the sacraments in our hands and eat and drink it in our mouths, by which our life is then sustained, so truly we receive into our souls, for our spiritual life, the true body and true blood of Christ, our only Savior. We receive these by faith, which is the hand and mouth of our souls.” –Belgic Confession 35

Rome’s doctrines of justification by good works, obedience to the Papacy, veneration of Mary, prayers to other saints, and insistence of later dogmas nowhere taught in the pages of Scripture are incompatible with the faith once for all delivered to the saints. We do not seek to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We do not reject anything because it might “seem Catholic” anymore than we embrace whatever may seem current, relevant, and culturally acceptable. We seek to go back to the Bible and the faith of our fathers. To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to these words, it is because there is no light in them! (Isa. 8:20) --JME

Christianity is Not a Team-Sport

The Lord’s Day should not be like the pep rally before the big game in which each team gathers in their home gymnasium in order to stir themselves up to fight the rival high school. The Calvinist Cougars prepare to claw the Baptist Bears. The Anglican Eagles soar high above the Lutheran Llamas. The Greek Orthodox insist that all of the other teams are ineligible to play in the league, being schismatics, the Roman Catholics claim their head coach is actually the head coach for all the other teams too, and the Divided Methodists and Lesbyterians show their ecumenical solidarity by joint displays of biodegradable Pride flags while shaking paper, climate-friendly pom-poms.

The fact is, the current state of the Lord’s Church is a mess. The Westminster Confession’s description of “more or less visible” doesn’t tell half the story. When you see what is going on in the Name of Jesus in some of these “churches,” you begin to think maybe the orcs really did descend from elves, as impossible as that seems.

I shared an elevator with a Lutheran this week. It was obvious he was making a pastoral visit, though I suspect he was not actually a pastor but a deacon, staff member, or volunteer. He saw my shirt advertising the Ezra Institute and its mission of “Informing Faith, Reforming Culture.” I saw the large silver cross around his neck. When I asked which synod he was with, he replied his church belonged to the ELCA. If the Lutheran team is the Llamas, the ELCA would be the ones on the roster with neurological disease and equine herpes. (Who knew that llamas could have neurological disease and equine herpes virus? You’re welcome.)

It occurred to me that we were two ministers riding an elevator at Children’s Hospital who have a lot in common and almost nothing in common. Both of us, presumably, have been baptized in the Name of the Triune God; we are covenantally Christian. We identify with Christian symbols and ideas. We visit hospitals in order to minister to the sick and afflicted. But the things that separate us almost seem to nullify all of the above, and I don’t mean our differences on confessional subscription, predestination, and the nature of baptismal regeneration. I’m referring to our almost certain disagreements on things like: the nature of the Triune God, the deity of Christ and his historical resurrection, the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, the historicity of Bible narratives and miracles, the exclusivity of salvation, and the necessity of a biblical ethic. The ELCA, as a general rule, doesn’t affirm any of those things. In fact, in most cases, they explicitly and proudly deny them. I think it is safe to say that I have far more in common with Martin Luther than any Lutheran who remains affiliated today with the ELCA.

The conclusion many fundamentalists and evangelicals reach is that the baptized Lutheran on the elevator is not a Christian. But, of course, he is a Christian, and that is the problem. He has been united to Christ in baptism. The fact that a husband acts like a whore does not mean that he isn’t a husband. It’s worse than that. It would be better if he were not married. But he is. That makes his whoring even more egregious. Fornication outside of marriage is a sin. Fornication inside of and against marriage is an abomination. It would be better to be an unbaptized Hindu on the day of judgment than to be a baptized Christian who insists sodomy is a moral and social good.

The Israelites in the northern kingdom were not Canaanites. They were worse. They were Israelites who acted like Canaanites. They worshiped false gods, persecuted the prophets, and broke covenant with God in every imaginable way, and in a few that Yahweh said even he had not imagined (cf. Jer. 19:5; 32:35, in fairness this was said about Judah!). Eventually the Lord divorced his covenant-breaking people, but he did not utterly forsake them. On the contrary, the promise of the prophets, the hope of the covenant God had made, was that one day Israel would be resurrected and restored, not merely to political existence, but to spiritual and covenantal life with their Lord.

What is the destiny of Christ’s Church? At the moment, she seems to have developed a multiple personality disorder and an addiction to substance abuse and self-harm. Will she continue to divide and devour herself until the Bridegroom returns? Will he come back to find a bride clothed in righteous beauty, or will he bring papers to annul the marriage before the honeymoon is over? The answer, of course, will depend on your eschatology and view of several biblical passages. My purpose is not to exegete or argue those verses here. This is a Lord’s Day devotional, not a speech in a theological debate. But to ask the question is, in some ways, to answer it. Yes, the Church will be winnowed, purified by suffering and trials. No, not every person (or denomination) visibly connected to Christ will remain until the last day. Unfruitful and diseased branches will be cut off and burned. The Lord of the vineyard will clean up his garden and make it healthy and beautiful, and that is the point here.

My sanctification is incomplete. It is easy for me to look down on the mainline Lutherans. Who wants to be a llama anyway? But there are places in my heart that are in even worse shape than their communion, because I have less excuse for my lack of holiness. I belong to a church that teaches the Bible. I know better. The only catechizing some of our mainline brethren have received is from Pastor Wolf in his rainbow colored sheepskin coat. Will the Lord abandon me because of my lingering sinfulness? No, and he will not abandon his Bride either. She needs a new diet, a gym membership, and some strong antibiotics, but she still belongs to him, and he will not allow Rev. Wormtongue and Deacon Grishnakh to have her.

There should be no pride that we are Presbyterians (or Baptists, or fill in the blank) when we gather on the Lord’s Day. If anyone boasts, let him boast in the Lord. I  am grateful for my Reformed identity and heritage, unashamedly so. I am Reformed because I believe it is the best, most faithful, most biblical expression of the religion of Christ. I am happy to discuss, debate, and defend its basic convictions and distinctions as the correct interpretation of Scripture. But there is a big difference between being Reformed because we think it is biblical and being Reformed because we think it is cooler to be a Raptor than a member of the Pentecostal Peanuts team.

The scale of identity and priority ought to be Christian, Catholic, Protestant, Reformed, and so on. It should not start with our narrowest distinctives but our broadest ones. We should see ourselves, first and foremost, in relation to Christ as members of his Body. The mainline church down the street may be so compromised as to have lost their lampstand, and Pastor Jezebel is liable to be struck down at any moment, but the baptizands in the pews are still my brothers and sisters, and some of them will be redeemed and sanctified, just as the Lord still promises to do with me and with you.

I am Reformed, paedobaptist, presbyterian, postmillennial, and theonomic, but none of those are merit badges on my robe when we gather to worship. They are not the colors of my “team,” only conclusions I have reached as I continue to study Scripture. Some of those convictions may be wrong. Even if none of those are, it is inevitable that I am in error on something else I confidently believe. But I am not saved by having all of the right answers. I am not saved because I worship in the right church in the right way as I teach and believe the right things. We are saved by Christ and by his grace alone.

When the Church assembles on the Lord’s Day, she does not meet on opposite sides of the playing field, wearing different color jerseys and rooting for sectarian success on gameday. She stands before the Maker’s throne, clothed in white. Her skin is still marred, she’s limping badly, and there are a few tumors that will have to be removed. The Lord is not finished with her yet, but one day he will be, and then we will finally be able to see how beautiful she is and always was in God’s mind. That is the Body that gathers, the Body to which we are connected. That is the Church of the risen Christ and the living God: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, forever. --JME

The First Order of Business in the Culture War

Many of you will have seen by now Tucker Carlson’s recent speech at the Heritage Foundation or at least clips from it. If you have not, I recommend it as well as Doug Wilson’s brief interaction with it (HERE). Now before you fire off an angry response to this email— “We came for an evening devotional to help us worship, and instead we got a political advertisement for a right-wing think tank!” —hear me out. I am not recommending this in order to discuss Fox News’s suicidal, spin in the wind approach to journalism or to point out that God has raised up a largely secular, ashamed Episcopalian to say things out loud that too many Reformed ministers are too compromised to say. Both of those would be interesting conversations to have at another time. I am bringing up the infamous Mr. Carlson’s comments for a different reason, one that really should be on our minds as we prepare for the Lord’s Day tomorrow.

At the end of his talk, Carlson said the following:

But if you’re telling me that abortion is a positive good, what are you saying? Well, you’re arguing for child sacrifice, obviously. It’s not about, oh, a teen girl gets pregnant, and what do we do about that and victims of rape. I get it. Of course, I understand that, and I have compassion for everyone involved. 

But when the Treasury secretary stands up and says, “You know what you can do to help the economy? Get an abortion.” Well, that’s like an Aztec principle, actually. There’s not a society in history that didn’t practice human sacrifice. Not one…. Well, what’s the point of child sacrifice? Well, there’s no policy goal entwined with that. No, that’s a theological phenomenon. 

And that’s kind of the point I’m making. None of this makes sense in conventional political terms. When people, or crowds of people, or the largest crowd of people at all, which is the federal government, the largest human organization in human history decide that the goal is to destroy things, destruction for its own sake, “Hey, let’s tear it down,” what you’re watching is not a political movement. It’s evil.

…

They don’t want a debate. Those ideas won’t produce outcomes that any rational person would want under any circumstances. Those are manifestations of some larger force acting upon us. It’s just so obvious. It’s completely obvious. 

And I think two things: One, we should say that and stop engaging in these totally fraudulent debates… as if maybe I could just win the debate if I marshaled more facts. 

I’ve tried. That doesn’t work. And two, maybe we should all take just 10 minutes a day to say a prayer about it. I’m serious. Why not? 

And I’m saying that to you not as some kind of evangelist, I’m literally saying that to you as an Episcopalian, the Samaritans of our time. I’m coming to you from the most humble and lowly theological position you can. I’m literally an Episcopalian. And even I have concluded it might be worth taking just 10 minutes out of your busy schedule to say a prayer for the future, and I hope you will.

Our hope for the future is not political reform, societal revolution, or civil war—all of which are distinct possibilities given our current politi-scape. Our hope for the future is in the mercy of God, the grace of the Spirit, and the sovereign and efficacious intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s it. Politicians cannot fix what is broken in this nation, neither can political pundits or cultural commentators in major media and on independent platforms. America’s hope, like any nation, is in repentance and revival. Apart from that, our country has no hope at all.

If this is true, and it is, then those ten minutes of daily prayer for our nation are the most important thing you and I can be doing to turn the ship away from the waterfall. It’s not the only thing we can or ought to do—see sermons on faithfulness, marriage, child rearing, godly vocation, and a Christian work ethic—but it is the most important thing we can do. God’s people have no greater weapon in their warfare against evil than righteous, persistent, biblically-oriented prayer.

If that is true, and it is, then the Lord’s Day is the centerpiece of human society, it is the first line of defense and offense in every cultural war: from chains in Egypt to exile in Babylon to persecution by the Roman Empire to the final days of the American Empire. Reformation must be ecclesio-centric, built around the believing and worshiping Church, extending out from the house of God as the waters of mercy flow from under the doors and the glory of the garden penetrates into the wilderness all around it. Going to Church is not secondary to the “real work” we do during the week in society. Worshiping as the Church is the work, first and foremost, we were made to perform. This is not to diminish the importance and value of obedience and godly activity in other aspects and spheres of life, but it is to elevate the importance and power of the Church as the Church doing what the Church alone can effectively do: worship God and intercede for his mercy and blessings upon this earth.

When we sing psalms and pray (but I repeat myself), we are offering sacrifices of praise, thanksgiving, and intercession acceptable to God in Christ. You may not need a mournful lament to be prayed, but your brothers and sisters in China do. You may not need a prayer for justice, but your brothers and sisters in Canada do. You may not need psalms and prayers of repentance… no, we all do. Reformation and revival begin here, not at the Heritage Foundation, not in the halls of Congress or the Supreme Court, and certainly not in the White House. If there is hope for this land, and there is, it is because God hears the prayers of his people. Let the Church rise up to worship, sing, proclaim, and pray! –JME

Luke 18:15-17: Bapterians and Naked Cannibals in the Nursery

Introduction

We have the opportunity today once again to participate in and celebrate the baptism of a covenant child, and the Session thought it might be useful to spend a few minutes this morning reflecting on the status of our children and how our covenant theology informs our parenting and nurture of these children. This is an important topic. Infant baptism is not merely a doctrine and practice to be debated. It is a commitment that flows out of a particular theological vision and that extends far beyond the moment of application. If we apply covenant baptism but do not practice covenant nurture, then we are failing to be faithful to what the Scriptures teach and to be consistent with the theology we claim to believe in.

How do we think about our children, as parents, as members of the church? Every time we baptize a covenant child we say:

“As [this child] is baptized into Christ and becomes a member of his visible church, the whole congregation is obligated to love (him/her) and receive (him/her) as a member of the body of Christ. For "we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body," and therefore are members of one another. Christ claims this little child as his own and calls you to receive (him/her) in love and commitment. Therefore, you ought to commit yourself before God to assist [this child] and (his/her) parents in (his/her) Christian nurture by godly example, prayer, and encouragement in our most precious faith.” –OPC Directory for Public Worship

Do we believe these words? Do we recognize them as real members of the Church? Do we think Christ claims them as his own? Or do we think their membership is second-class, honorary, but not actual? Do we consider that Christ’s possession of them is only potential, something we hope will be true someday, but that it is not really true unless and until they make a public profession of faith?

What do our children think, and are we helping them understand their true status or causing them confusion, stress, or fear unintentionally due to our own ignorance? These are the issues we will take up today, not so much a defense of infant baptism, but an exploration of the theology that undergirds it and an exhortation to the covenant nurture which ought to flow from it.

The Status of Covenant Children

To read and listen to some Reformed theologians talk about our children, you might think the Reformed Church has a robust doctrine of Purgatory. We don’t believe that dead souls go to limbo; we believe our covenant children are there right now! Maybe they will be saved, maybe not. We hope they will, but we really can’t be sure. After all, not every child of a believer will be, so we have a lot of doubts and fears about our own kids as a consequence. We know that we are not saved by works, but we’re pretty sure they will have to be. We were not saved because we were intelligent, but until we know their prefrontal cortex is working just fine, we will remain in doubt about their salvation. They are children of the Church, to be sure, and they are members of the Church, sort of, at least with some kind of junior status. Theirs is one of those trial accounts that expires after thirty days. We’re hoping they will decide to purchase a full subscription, but until they have the catechism memorized and can explain why they are infralapsarian or supralapsarian, we must remain in doubt.

What do the Scriptures tell us about the children of believers? More than we can address in a single lesson, but let’s summarize it. Yahweh promises to be God to believers and their kids. This is stated explicitly to Abraham (Gen. 17:7), but it begins earlier than that. The Lord puts Noah’s family on the ark with him during the flood, not because each member of the house was personally righteous but because they inherited covenant blessings through the faith of their father. Earlier still we see hope appear in the aftermath of the Fall in two acts: promise (Gen. 3:20) and sacrifice (Gen. 3:21). The Lord threatened that on the day Adam ate of the forbidden tree “dying you shall die,” but after the Lord confronts the man and woman, Adam names his wife Eve because she will be “the mother of all the living.” There will be life after death; there is resurrection hope, and that hope is revealed through offspring, the birth of children. Reproduction in covenant households is not a reason for uncertainty, anxiety, or despair. It is an instrument of salvation and blessing.

Does this remain true in the NT? Certainly. Jesus says in our sermon text: the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. He does not say, “To ones like these but not these.” That would make no sense. The kingdom belongs to these and those like them. And who are these? There are the infants (τὰ βρέφη) of believers. Who is bringing their little children to Jesus for blessing? Not the Pharisees. Not the household of Herod. Not Pilate. These are the infants of disciples. The children cannot come on their own, and that is the point. This is how you and I enter the kingdom. We do not come in our strength, by means of our rationality, or through our choice. We are brought to Jesus in order to receive a blessing. The Holy Spirit draws us to him, and we have no power in ourselves to come to him (Jn. 6:44).

On the Day of Pentecost, Peter says to the multitudes: Repent, and let everyone of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. All through the OT we read language like this—to you and your children. How would a crowd of Jewish men understand that statement? Would they interpret it like individualistic Americans? “The promise is to you and to your children when they reach the age of maturity if they make a good decision and choose to believe in Christ and be faithful, even if many of them probably won’t.” Is that how they were to understand it? Or would they understand it in terms of the OT context and the Abrahamic promise?

The New Covenant is greater in every way. It has better promises, a better Mediator, a more inclusive administration. It includes Gentiles and women, rich and poor. It also excludes the children of believers who have been included in the Church for more than 2,000 years?! Does that make sense? Is that how we are to understand the “greatness” of the New Covenant?

In 1 Corinthians 7:14 Paul says: For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. He does not say the unbelieving spouse is saved by the believing spouse, nor does he say that the child of a believer is automatically and unconditionally saved. They will be saved through faith, just like us. What he does say about the children of a believer—not the spouse, NB—is that they are holy (ἅγιά). This is the same word translated saints throughout your NT. Holy does not mean elect or regenerate. It means consecrated, set apart, sanctified by covenant. The children of believers belong to God. They are saints, i.e. Christians. We do not baptize our children in order to make them Christians. We baptize them because that is what they are.

In Ephesians 6 the Word of God instructs the kids in the Church: Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. There are all kinds of hilarious interpretations people make of this passage. They say that in the Lord means “your parents who are in the Lord;” apparently God does not expect children whose parents are not believers to obey them. Others say in the Lord means in all lawful orders, which means if a 5 year old’s parents tell him to go get Dad his twelfth beer of the evening the little tyke is expected to raise a conscientious objection. This command is in Ephesians—you remember that letter, right? It’s the one where in him, in Christ, in the Lord is the recurring phrase that helps us understand the theme. We have every spiritual blessing in Christ, are chosen in him, trusted in him, made alive together with him, are built together for a dwelling place of God in him, have heard and learned how to walk in him, submit to one another in him. In ch.5 Paul begins telling each member of the household their responsibilities. Wives, husbands, children, parents, slaves, masters, and then all believers: put on the armor of God. Children, obey your parents in the Lord. What does that mean? It means children in the Church are in the Lord.

Of course, it could just mean that children who have reached an age of accountability and made a decision for Christ are to obey their parents. Maybe all of the younger children are simply to obey their parents on the authority of natural law. Or maybe you’re simply hoping your children will decide to start obeying you when they choose to become Christians. No, you are supposed to teach your children that they are Christians, and then help them understand how to act like it.

The Mission Field That Never Was

You can find many references in print and online to the idea that a Christian’s family is their “mission field.” I understand what they mean and don’t want to disparage it. If one means that a Christian’s first responsibility is to share Christ with his household: yes, and amen. God forbid that I share Christ with this community or teach the Bible diligently to this congregation but fail to teach my children the love of God. If we mean that a stay-at-home mom doesn’t need to feel negligent in reaching the world for Christ because she is on the front lines every day as she trains her children: yes, and amen. We should see the nurture of our family as the first sphere of Christian service. But there is a problem with thinking of a believer’s family as a mission field. It isn’t, and never was.

A believer’s children can choose to become unbelievers. They can be disobedient. They can abandon Christ and walk in the ways of the world. What they cannot ever choose to be is a non-Christian. They are saints, holy ones. If baptized, they are members of Christ’s Body. They can be excommunicated. They can become apostate Christians. But they never can be a naked cannibal who has never heard of the Lord. There are no naked cannibals in the Church’s nursery.

Many teachers, even faithful and (otherwise) helpful Reformed ones, have spoken about the need to “evangelize” our children. Certainly we need to share the gospel with our kids every day, but this is no different than all the rest of us. Every one of us needs the gospel every day. We are not merely converted by it but sustained and sanctified by it! If you mean by “evangelizing” your children that you speak to them of Christ and his Lordship, righteousness, and saving work in the context of life together, then well and good. If you mean that you continually call your children to repent and trust in Christ, then well done, but be sure you are telling yourself the same thing. But if you are having altar calls during family worship, stop it. If you are speaking to your children as if their relationship with Christ is in doubt, knock it off. Your children are Christians, God’s saints. The kingdom of God belongs to ones like them. You may have doubts about your own place in the kingdom of God, but you should not communicate any doubts to them that they belong there.

Our children do not need to be evangelized as if they were unconverted—unless you have clear and persistent evidence that your adult children are. What they need is to be discipled with the gospel. They need covenant nurture, to be trained in the discipline of grace as sons and daughters of God, members of the Body of Christ, recipients of his promise. The promise is not “Christ can be yours if one day you choose to believe,” but “Christ has given himself to you and for you, now embrace him, reverently and gratefully, by faith every day.”

What Baptism Means

We’re baptizing a child today (and more soon to come!), so let’s reflect for a few minutes about what baptism means, what it says to us and about us, and what it signifies. Our Directory for Public Worship, in instruction we read at every baptism, affirms the following:

“The Lord Jesus Christ instituted baptism as a covenant sign and seal for his church. He uses it… for the solemn admission of the person who is baptized into the visible church… also to depict and to confirm his ingrafting of that person into himself and his including that person in the covenant of grace….He uses it to witness and seal to us the remission of sins and the bestowal of all the gifts of salvation through union with Christ. Baptism with water signifies and seals cleansing from sin by the blood and the Spirit of Christ, together with our death unto sin and our resurrection unto newness of life…. The time of the outward application of the sign does not necessarily coincide with the inward work of the Holy Spirit which the sign represents and seals to us…. In our baptism, the Lord puts his name on us, claims us as his own, and summons us to assume the obligations of the covenant.”–OPC Directory of Public Worship III.B.1.b.(2) (cf. WCF 28.1)

Listen carefully to those words. What does baptism mean? It means salvation. It does not signify a possibility of salvation, a potential salvation. It does not say this person might be saved or we hope they might be someday. Baptism marks a person as belonging to Christ, being united to his Body, being a recipient of the benefits of grace, including the forgiveness of sins, adoption into the family of God, consecration by the blood of God’s Son, and the promise of everlasting life.1 OPC minister Charles McIlhenny notes regarding the statements on baptism in the OPC’s Directory of Worship:

“(1) Here the candidate for baptism is included in the covenant of grace before receiving the sign of baptism. So until the parent has reason to believe the contrary (apostasy, excommunicating discipline of the church), the child is to be received as included in Christ —not temporarily included or possibly not included. (2) The baptism ritual means ‘remission of sins and the bestowal of all the gifts of salvation’ and nothing less. The sign means that the child has remission of sins, as much as is promised to the adult receiver. (3) ‘Claimed as His own,’ in this context, refers to the candidate truly belonging to Christ until evidence to the contrary contradicts the sign. The candidate, no matter what his age, is baptized because he is a member of Christ. He or she is not baptized so that he or she would become a member of Christ.” –To You and Your Children, 188

Baptism means the same thing for adult recipients as for our children. There are not two kinds of baptism; it does not result in two different classes of membership. Baptized children are not lesser Christians, they are not second class members, they are not potential candidates for salvation. Baptism signifies salvation; it confers privileges and responsibilities as members of the covenant; it seals the authenticity of God’s promises to his Church received through faith.

Children, God placed you in a Christian family, and that means you are in covenant with him. You are members of the Church, and the Lord expects you to think and speak and act like a Christian, because that is what you are. That means obeying your parents, helping your brothers and sisters, praying for the Church, repenting of your sins, and loving Christ. It means learning to pay attention during the preaching, learning the psalms and hymns, reciting the creed and prayer of confession, and saying Amen when we finish a prayer or a song. Raise your hands when we sing the Doxology—Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, And bless the LORD (Psa. 134:2). You are not waiting to be saved when you profess your faith in Christ. You are professing your faith each and every day in how you live and every Lord’s Day as we worship God together. You are saved, if you trust in Christ. You are a Christian. You are God’s child. So believe in Jesus, and rejoice.

Covenant Succession and Covenant Nurture

Infant baptism in Reformed churches is based upon the idea that our children are included in God’s covenant, that their place in Christian families is not an accident, and that they are to be marked as members of the covenant by visible signs and their outward conduct of life. Closely related to this is another doctrine that some (not all) Reformed saints affirm: covenant succession.

“The doctrine of covenant succession presents the Scriptural teaching that the children of believers (covenant children) are expected to succeed in the faith of their parents, and this is accomplished through the divinely ordained means of covenant nurture.”2

We do not baptize our children because we assume that they are elect. We baptize them because we believe Scripture teaches us to do so, whether they are ultimately saved or not. But we should believe that our children are elect unless and until we have convincing evidence otherwise. Baptist churches either assume that our children are not converted until they make a profession of faith or that we cannot know whether they are saved or not. That is not our operating assumption nor the teaching of Scripture. We do not baptize our children because we assume they are elect, but we do assume they are elect. We do not assume that our children are regenerated by the Holy Spirit the moment they are baptized, but we do assume they are regenerate. After all, what does baptism signify and seal? Regeneration (WCF 28.1; cf. Acts 22:16; Rom. 6:3-4; Tit. 3:5).

We should believe that the Lord plans to save our children through the ordinary means of biblical parenting, sincere prayer, family worship, and participation in the local church. Faith is the condition of justification. It is not the sole condition of salvation. God works through means, and we do not expect (or hope) the means of our children’s salvation will be dramatic conversion after years of teenage rebellion, drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, and a suicide attempt. Some kids may be saved through such circumstances, but we hope and pray and parent in the firm conviction that our children are saved and will be saved through ordinary, boring, faithfulness.

“That’s not to say that the regeneration work of the Spirit is not needed in the life of every covenant child. Nor is it to conclude that there is no need for repentance and faith in the life of the growing child. Nor is it to say he does not need to commit him or herself personally to Christ…. We should expect our covenant children, as they grow up in the faith, to follow through with owning up to the promise and the responsibility of covenant membership. We should expect, though not presumptuously, that the blessings of the covenant will follow the child throughout the rest of his life. Such an expectation expresses itself by the faithful prayers and diligent nurturing of the believing parent or parents.” –McIlhenny, 186

Too many Reformed Christians have too little confidence in and expectations of their kids’ salvation. They fear that such confidence will lead to presumption, apathy, and an unregenerate Church. But what does Scripture promise? What should we expect? The Philippian jailer was told: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household (Ac 16:31). The promise was not, “Believe and you will be saved and make it more likely that one day your kids might believe and then be saved too.” The Lord said of Abraham: I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him (Gen. 18:9). Notice that God’s promises would be fulfilled through commanding his children to keep the way of the Lord. Israel was taught to fear Yahweh that it might be well with them and with their children forever (De. 5:29). Scripture promises: Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it (Pr. 22:6), but perhaps we have so qualified that promise that we do not believe it means much of anything anymore. God reassures his people that in the New Covenant, not just the Old: I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and floods on the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit on your descendants, and My blessing on your offspring (Is. 44:3).

The children of believers are members of the covenant, and in their baptism they are made members of the Church. Church members can be lost through unbelief and disobedience. That is what we see in Israel’s experience described in Hebrews 3-4. But that does not mean they were not members of the Church or that they never were part of the community of the saved.

“Those who want absolute certainty can never dispense any sacrament. The question is only whether the certainty that in dealing with the children of believers we are dealing with believers is the same as the certainty we possess concerning those who confess their faith as adults. We do not need and may not demand another or stronger kind of certainty. Scripture offers a clear answer to the question thus framed.” –Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics IV.526

Conclusion

There are many different explanations and excuses offered since the Great Awakening for how we are to think about our kids. Some say no promise is made to them at all, only to whatever few among them might be elect. Some follow Thornwell and Dabney in claiming that the promise is of covenant privileges, not salvation. One wonders how this differs at all from a Baptist view, or if it is correct, why we baptize them at all. Many follow Hodge in thinking the promises are only a generality, describing a potential salvation without any real certainty. But that is not what the Bible says. God promises to be the God of our children and to save them, in part, through the faithfulness of their parents. These promises, like all others in the Bible, must be received by faith. You cannot save your children by works. God saves them through faith, first yours, then theirs. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household. Amen.

--JME

1 “The one who receives the ceremony of baptism is designated by what the sign ascribes to him. Baptism means salvation, but baptism does not cause salvation. Baptism is the sign and seal of regeneration; regeneration is not the ground of baptism. Thus those that receive it are to be sincerely considered saved.” Charles McIlhenny, To You and Your Children, 180

2  Benjamin Wikner, To You and Your Children: Examining the Biblical Doctrine of Covenant Succession (Canon Press, 2005), xix.