For Your Calendar

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, Abigail will be baptized next Sunday (5/31/09). We are thankful for the Lord’s provision for his followers and their children, and we ask you to join us in praying that Abigail would indeed come to know the Lord. We will do our best to post some photos after the fact.

Additionally, we thought some of you may be interested about what we believe about baptism, so the rest of this longer than usual post is dedicated to that.

Article 33 of the Belgic Confession (1561) summarizes what we believe about both Christian sacraments (i.e. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper):

We believe that our good God, mindful of our crudeness and weakness, has ordained sacraments for us to seal his promises in us, to pledge his good will and grace toward us, and also to nourish and sustain our faith.

He has added these to the Word of the gospel to represent better to our external senses both what he enables us to understand by his Word and what he does inwardly in our hearts, confirming in us the salvation he imparts to us.

For they are visible signs and seals of something internal and invisible, by means of which God works in us through the power of the Holy Spirit. So they are not empty and hollow signs to fool and deceive us, for their truth is Jesus Christ, without whom they would be nothing.

More specifically, article 34 of the same Confession describes our beliefs about the sacrament of baptism in more detail:

We believe and confess that Jesus Christ, in whom the law is fulfilled, has by his shed blood put an end to every other shedding of blood, which anyone might do or wish to do in order to atone or satisfy for sins.

Having abolished circumcision, which was done with blood, he established in its place the sacrament of baptism. By it we are received into God’s church and set apart from all other people and alien religions, that we may be dedicated entirely to him, bearing his mark and sign. It also witnesses to us that he will be our God forever, since he is our gracious Father.

Therefore he has commanded that all those who belong to him be baptized with pure water in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19).

In this way he signifies to us that just as water washes away the dirt of the body when it is poured on us and also is seen on the body of the baptized when it is sprinkled on him, so too the blood of Christ does the same thing internally, in the soul, by the Holy Spirit. It washes and cleanses it from its sins and transforms us from being the children of wrath into the children of God.

This does not happen by the physical water but by the sprinkling of the precious blood of the Son of God, who is our Red Sea, through which we must pass to escape the tyranny of Pharaoh, who is the devil, and to enter the spiritual land of Canaan.

So ministers, as far as their work is concerned, give us the sacrament and what is visible, but our Lord gives what the sacrament signifies– namely the invisible gifts and graces; washing, purifying, and cleansing our souls of all filth and unrighteousness; renewing our hearts and filling them with all comfort; giving us true assurance of his fatherly goodness; clothing us with the “new man” and stripping off the “old,” with all its works….

And truly, Christ has shed his blood no less for washing the little children of believers than he did for adults.

Therefore they ought to receive the sign and sacrament of what Christ has done for them, just as the Lord commanded in the law that by offering a lamb for them the sacrament of the suffering and death of Christ would be granted them shortly after their birth. This was the sacrament of Jesus Christ.

Furthermore, baptism does for our children what circumcision did for the Jewish people. That is why Paul calls baptism the “circumcision of Christ” (Colossians 2:11).

In sum, we believe that baptism is a sign and seal of God’s work in us, and that this work is also offered to the children of those who belong to the covenant community. In the words of the baptismal service used at the church we attend here in Aberdeen:

The sacrament assures us of things which we claim by faith for our children: Of our being made one with Christ; of the washing away of sin and the start of a new life in Christ; of the gift of the Holy Spirit; of adoption into God’s family; and resurrection to eternal life. By this sacrament we acknowledge God’s grace, which draws us and our children into Christ’s visible Church, and we solemnly engage them to be the Lord’s.

The last line (i.e. “we solemnly engage them to the be the Lord’s") is particularly important. It recognizes the fact that we do not think the sacrament of baptism in any way effects the salvation of the child (or the adult for that matter). In other words, baptism does not cause regeneration. It is, rather, a physical sign of God’s salvific work in Christ through the Holy Spirit. So, please join us in praying for Abigail and engaging her in the reality of her depravity and her need to submit herself to God’s sovereign will.