What baptism signifies

This week's questions

Which are the sacraments of the New Testament? The sacraments of the New Testament are, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper.

Question 93

What is Baptism? Baptism is a sacrament, wherein the washing with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, doth signify and seal our ingrafting into Christ, and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace, and our engagement to be the Lord's.

Question 94

After what a sacrament is (last week), Question 93 names the two of the New Testament and Question 94 explains the first, baptism. To whom it is given is Question 95 next week.

Two sacraments, instituted by Christ

The New Testament has two sacraments because Christ himself instituted two. The risen Lord sent his disciples out to baptise:

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Matthew 28:19

And on the night he was betrayed he gave the bread and the cup (Matthew 26:26-28). The Belgic Confession (1561) of the Dutch Reformed churches is content with the number Christ instituted, "which are two only" art. 33.

Catholics count seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, the anointing of the sick, holy orders and matrimony Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1113. The Orthodox also commonly count seven, giving chrismation, their counterpart to confirmation, with baptism. In the West the list goes back to Peter Lombard's Sentences (1150s) Peter Lombard, Sentences, book 4. In 1520 Martin Luther criticised that system, holding that Scripture institutes baptism and the Supper (and, he then allowed, penance) Luther, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. Protestants honour marriage and ordination but do not call them sacraments.

What baptism signifies and seals

Given in the one name of the three persons, baptism signifies and seals three things.

Our ingrafting into Christ. As branches live in the vine (John 15:5), the baptised are marked as joined to Christ. In the next proof text Paul writes:

Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.

Romans 6:3-4

Our share in the benefits of the covenant of grace. Peter joined baptism to the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Spirit (Acts 2:38), and Paul says God saved us "through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:5). The Belgic Confession calls Christ, whose blood the water signifies, "our Red Sea, through which we must pass to escape the tyranny of Pharaoh, that is, the devil" art. 34.

Our engagement to be the Lord's. Baptism is God's promise and also our answer. Paul goes on, "present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life" (Romans 6:13).

Baptism is received once and lived out for life. The Larger Catechism calls this "improving our Baptism", a lifelong duty, and among its ways, with Romans 6 as proof, it names "drawing strength from the death and resurrection of Christ, into whom we are baptized, for the mortifying of sin, and quickening of grace" Larger Catechism, Q. 167. The Westminster Confession binds neither salvation to the water nor the water's grace to its hour: to neglect baptism is a great sin, yet one may be saved without it WCF 28.5, and the grace it promises is given by the Spirit, to those to whom it belongs, "according to the counsel of God's own will, in his appointed time" 28.6.

Churches differ on what baptism does. Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran Christians teach that in baptism God gives new birth and forgives sins. The Lutherans' Augsburg Confession teaches that baptism "is necessary to salvation, and that by Baptism the grace of God is offered" art. 9, and Luther's Small Catechism that its gifts, forgiveness, deliverance from death and the devil, and eternal salvation, belong "to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare" Baptism, second. The Anglican Thirty-nine Articles speak of an instrument: those who rightly receive baptism are grafted by it into the Church, and "Faith is confirmed, and Grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God" art. 27. The Reformed confess it a sign and seal of the covenant of grace WCF 28.1, and the Reformed Baptists' Second London Confession (1689) "a sign of his fellowship with him, in his death, and resurrection" 29.1.

The mode differs too. The Westminster Confession holds that dipping is not necessary, "but baptism is rightly administered by pouring or sprinkling water upon the person" WCF 28.3; the 1689 Confession, that immersion "is necessary to the due administration of this ordinance" 29.4; and the Orthodox, infants included, baptise by threefold immersion. The Didache, from the late first or early second century, puts baptism in "living water" first yet leaves room, when water is lacking, to "pour out water thrice upon the head", so the difference of mode is very old Didache 7. See also Baptism, The sign of the covenant and Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

To ponder this week

What does it mean for this week's ordinary days that you were baptised into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; or, if you are not yet baptised, what holds you back? When temptation presses, remember Romans 6: you were buried and raised with Christ. If you are not yet baptised, there is no shame in the question: talk it over with your pastor.

Practice