Understanding the PCA’s Baptismal Doctrine
This article has been edited from its original version.
Jonathan Mckenzie’s recent piece at American Reformer highlights a real issue in some PCA churches: there is an insecurity among some PCA pastors when it comes to infant baptism. They’re nervous, on the one hand, because a large number of their members likely have come out of credobaptist churches fairly recently and still find infant baptism perplexing at best, and deeply troubling at worst. On the other hand, they are anxious to assure their congregants that they are not baptizing infants for the same reason that Romans Catholics do, not sharing with them a view of baptismal regeneration.
Mckenzie, however, does not provide a single statement about “the Reformed doctrine of infant baptism and its efficacy.” He does imply that the majority of PCA ministers do not know what that doctrine teaches and therefore do not adhere to it. Specifically, Mckenzie states that the Westminster Standards “quite clearly condemn those who would reduce baptism from an effectual means of salvation to a mere symbol.”
McKenzie needs to be more careful with the language he uses to describe the teaching of the Westminster Standards. Nowhere does the Confession state that baptism is an effectual means of salvation. Now, I suppose I can’t say exactly what Mckenzie means when he says that baptism is “an effectual means of salvation” because he doesn’t explain this claim even once, nor quote any Scripture, Reformed confessions, or Reformed theologians to substantiate it. Nonetheless, I think most people would read such a phrase to imply that baptism effects, or causes, salvation. The Westminster Confession certainly does not argue for this.
What does the WCF say that baptism accomplishes? First, it brings about “the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church” (WCF 28.1). Mckenzie is correct that the Confession does not teach that baptism is merely a sign. It certainly is a sign, but also a “seal of the covenant of grace, of his engrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life (WCF 28.1). Sacramental signs and seals, as John Calvin puts it so well in his Genevan Catechism, are necessary because God:
consults our weakness. If we were wholly spiritual, we might, like the angels, spiritually behold both him and his grace; but as we are surrounded with this body of clay, we need figures or mirrors to exhibit a view of spiritual and heavenly things in a kind of earthly manner; for we could not otherwise attain to them. At the same time, it is our interest to have all our senses exercised in the promises of God, that they may be the better confirmed to us.
As a seal, baptism “better confirms” the promises of God to us. It does not, however, bring about conversion or regeneration invariably. Even salvation more broadly considered as the whole work of God in the life of the Christian is not necessarily brought about by baptism either. As the Westminster Confession puts it: “Although it be a great sin to contemn or neglect this ordinance, yet grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto it, as that no person can be regenerated, or saved, without it; or, that all that are baptized are undoubtedly regenerated” (WCF 28.5). Baptism, in other words, is not described as an effectual means of salvation for all who are baptized.
The strongest language in the Confession regarding baptismal efficacy is in WCF 28.6:
The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of this ordinance, 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.
What does a right use of baptism accomplish? Grace is “offered.” Grace is “really exhibited.” Grace “is conferred.” In this section do we then find the definitive proof for baptism as an effectual means of salvation? No. All these things are “conferred by the Holy Ghost,” but only to such “as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God’s own will, in his appointed time.” In other words (repeating the language of WCF 28.5): “grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto” baptism “that all that are baptized are undoubtedly regenerated.”
The sacramental language of the Reformed confessions and earlier Reformed theologians is often troubling to evangelicals (undoubtedly even some in the PCA). Consider again what John Calvin wrote in the Genevan Catechism in answer to the question: “But do you attribute nothing more to the water than that it is a figure of ablution?” Is baptism merely a sign, in other words? The answer: “I understand it to be a figure, but still so that the reality is annexed to it; for God does not disappoint us when he promises us his gifts. Accordingly, it is certain that both pardon of sins and newness of life are offered to us in baptism, and received by us.” There we have it, baptism as an effectual means of salvation! Not so fast. The very next question is this: “Is this grace bestowed on all indiscriminately?” The answer: “Many precluding its entrance by their depravity, make it void to themselves. Hence the benefit extends to believers only, and yet the Sacrament loses nothing of its nature.” Earlier in the catechism, Calvin had stated this point emphatically:
I mean that we are not to cleave to the visible signs so as to seek salvation from them, or imagine that the power of conferring grace is either fixed or included in them, but rather that the sign is to be used as a help, by which, when seeking salvation and complete felicity, we are pointed directly to Christ.
In yet another place, he asks the question: “How are these blessings bestowed upon us by Baptism?” His answer is that: “If we do not render the promises there offered unfruitful by rejecting them, we are clothed with Christ, and presented with his Spirit.” Calvin, just like the Westminster Confession, insists that salvation is pictured, even offered, in baptism, but only received by those who embrace the promise of baptism in faith. God can implant the seed of faith in that infant at the moment of baptism if he so chooses, but there is no inseparable connection between baptism and even the inception of salvation. Furthermore, infants are to baptized not on the grounds of known faith and repentance, but rather, it “will be sufficient . . . if, after infants have grown up, they exhibit the power of their baptism.” The promise of salvation held out in baptism, in other words, must be received and personally appropriated by personal faith.
I am a minister in the PCA and subscribe without exception to the Westminster Confession of Faith. I agree with Mckenzie that it “is the duty of officers in the PCA to subscribe to and teach according to the system of doctrine set forth in the Westminster Standards.” A more careful statement of what that system of doctrine actually affirms about baptism in necessary.
Mea Culpa: McKenzie is correct that the Westminster catechisms say the sacraments “become effectual means of salvation.” I’ve done what I said McKenzie shouldn’t have done and not been as careful as I should have been. I believe it is vital to explain the language of the Westminster standards on the sacraments in its totality, lest a skewed understanding of sacramental efficacy result. His was not a theological paper. Fair enough, but given certain misappropriations of “high” Reformed sacramental language, the qualification is important.
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“McKenzie needs to be more careful with the language he uses to describe the teaching of the Westminster Standards. Nowhere does the Confession state that baptism is an effectual means of salvation.”
And
“Now, I suppose I can’t say exactly what Mckenzie means when he says that baptism is “an effectual means of salvation” because he doesn’t explain this claim even once, nor quote any Scripture, Reformed confessions, or Reformed theologians to substantiate it.”
He’s right, the Confession of Faith no where calls the sacraments an effectual means of salvation….. But the Larger Catechism uses this exact language:
Q. 161. How do the sacraments become effectual means of salvation?
A. The sacraments become effectual means of salvation, not by any power in themselves, or any virtue derived from the piety or intention of him by whom they are administered, but only by the working of the Holy Ghost, and the blessing of Christ, by whom they are instituted.
With due respect to Dr. Dunson, the article below is really unnecessary. My article was an essay encouraging courage, not a theological paper arguing for one of the various Reformed positions on the efficacy of infant Baptism. It’s a shame to see someone upset with language that comes straight from the standards themselves and language that can be found throughout the Reformed Orthodox.
Unfortunately, the footnotes to my piece did not make the cut, but within them was a citation from WLC Q. 153, 154, and 161.
I’m not going to write a follow up advocating for a specific form of baptismal efficacy since:
1. It was the point of the article.
2. There are several Reformed options (See Witsius)
3. Because I think responding to this would be silly.
*1. It was not the point of the article
The PCA is not governed by the views of “the Reformed orthodox”, but by the Westminster Confession. Since you’re addressing the PCA, it is actually incredibly important that you hold officers to the standard of their churchly document, rather than the standard of “Reformed Orthodoxy”. Thus it’s entirely fair game for Dr. Dunson to defend what he believes is the actual view of the confession on the matter of baptismal efficacy.
You seem to implicitly disagree with Dr. Dunson’s view, holding to another. The only way your criticism of PCA officer’s treatment of baptismal efficacy can maintain its force is if you show that your view is the teaching of the standards, and not simply acceptable within “Reformed orthodoxy.”
Officers in the PCA are required to subscribe to the whole of the Standards which includes not just the Confession but also the Larger and Shorter Catechism which both use the language of “effectual means of salvation” which “communicates to us the benefits of [Christ’s] mediation” to describe the sacraments. I simply used the language of the Standards. Which I cited in my comment. Feel free to reread it. I cite Larger Catechism Q. 161.
I bring up the Reformed Orthodox because Dunson criticized me for not citing the Standards or any Reformed theologians. In the draft I submitted I did indeed cite the Larger Catechism in the footnotes.
And yes, I obviously disagree with Dr. Dunson criticizing the Standards language regarding the sacraments.
We in the American Reformed world have swum for so long in the waters of broader evangelicalism that we instinctively recoil when presented with plain confessional and biblical language about baptism. Mr. McKenzie has already adroitly addressed the core problem with Dr. Dunson’s essay – that “effectual means of salvation” is employed in the very catechisms to which Dr. Dunson subscribes. This language should not scare us or need extensive qualification lest we attract the outrage of the memorialists.
Dr. Dunson shows good awareness here of the Reformed tradition in drawing a distinction between merely being in the covenant and actually being elect and thus having the benefits of baptism applied (and nothing about Mr. McKenzie’s essay should be construed as placing the moment of justification in baptism), but our default language should not mirror the memorialists’. We should boldly and courageously use confessional and biblical language, e.g. “The sacraments become effectual means of salvation, not from any virtue in them, or in him that does administer them; but only by the blessing of Christ, and the working of his Spirit in them that by faith receive them.”; “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
That so many evangelicals have collapsed and narrowed the word “salvation” to be nothing more than a synonym for forensic justification is their problem, not ours. By using historical Reformed language, we have the opportunity to educate our memorialist brothers and sisters as to the true meaning and efficacy of the sacrament. Salvation is all-encompassing, and baptism is a powerful work of God and an outpouring of grace for the believer. It is not a converting ordinance, but it is one of the means employed by God to deliver the totality of salvation. Being delivered from the world into the arms of the Church is salvific. Being buried with Christ to walk in newness of life is salvific. Being able to lean on the promises of God in baptism in moments of doubt is salvific. There is nothing contradictory between this language and the teaching of the Reformed confessions.
I applaud Mr. McKenzie’s call for a muscular reassertion of historical Reformed doctrine regarding baptism, and I am disappointed that an esteemed figure as Dr. Dunson would make such an elementary mistake in proclaiming that “effectual means of salvation” in not found in the Standards.