One and the Same Substance

The Heidelberg Catechism implies the truth of God’s one covenant promise to his people when answer 74 says, “As was done in the old covenant or testament by circumcision, instead of which baptism is instituted in the new covenant” (Confessions and Church Order, 111). Belgic Confession article 34 implies the same when it says, “What circumcision was to the Jews…baptism is for our children” (Confessions and Church Order, 70). The Catechism and the Belgic Confession are not taking issue with baptizing all infants of believers and are not interested in the question whether all children of believers are truly in the covenant, that is, whether they are truly elect children whom God has given to Jesus Christ in eternity unto the consummation of his eternal kingdom of righteousness and peace. Also these creeds are not interested in the question of capability, that is, whether infants can actively profess their faith and thus have the right to the kingdom of God.

These questions I should say are Arminian in nature, and they put malice in the simplest declaration of God to his people as his people stand organically as one body consisting of both adults and children. The objective promise of God is so simple that even a child can perceive what it means that God establishes his covenant fellowship with all believers and their children. It is as simple as this: the promise is spiritual, and therefore the people to whom it is given are perceived by Jehovah God as his organic, spiritual children scattered historically throughout the world.

The key to answering scruples is consistently to insist on the spirituality of God’s covenant with his people.

That in this question and answer [74] of the Heidelberger not all the children that are baptized, but only the spiritual children, that is, the elect, are meant is evident. (Declaration of Principles of the Protestant Reformed Churches, in Confessions and Church Order, 419)

The promise of God is not carnal. Although the promise is creaturely spoken and signified, as God anthropomorphically communicated it to his people, it is not carnal and will never be a matter of material things.

The words “I will be a God unto thee and to thy seed” express the one covenant of God as having one substance, which indeed is applied in the line of continued generations of believers. This is the substance of the covenant on which all external administrations are set to be the signs and seals; for instance, circumcision in the old dispensation and, as the Catechism states, “Instead of which baptism is instituted in the new covenant.”

Remember that the covenant has three aspects: the bond, the word, and the tokens or signs. In the words of the covenant spoken to Abraham, two implications were established. First, God always has covenant fellowship with his people. This is the end and the substance of the covenant promise. Even before the foundation of the world, God already had covenant fellowship with his people in Jesus Christ as the mediator of the covenant and as the revelation of the innermost covenant life of God within himself. Second, this covenant fellowship or bond was verbally communicated to Abraham. God declared to Abraham that the end of all things that God had determined to do was to establish a covenant with all his spiritual children. The mere fact that God spoke to Abraham in love implied an intimate relationship. God does not speak to the reprobate wicked in such an intimate manner. Christ assures his people of this intimate relationship of God with his people through Christ’s mediatorial ministry. In John 15:15 Jesus said, “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.” God speaks to his people through Jesus Christ, and that signifies a covenant relationship that God already has with them. God spoke to them on the cross when his Son redeemed them from sin and death. Redemption pointed back to the idea of redeeming one’s kinsman, as “was the manner in former time in Israel concerning redeeming” (Ruth 4:7). Christ redeemed his kinsmen as they already had been related to his Father by virtue of his everlasting covenant of grace with them, even in eternity.

The very words of the covenant set forth the promise. In those words God has given to his people the substance of his one covenant with them—that is, first and foremost, Jesus Christ is the mediator of the covenant. The apostle Paul explained the word “seed” as pointing to the person of Jesus Christ as the fulfilment and mediator of the promise (Gal. 3:16–18). Second, I argue that “seed” also points to the fact that God has only one people. This idea appears to be repugnant to those who hold a dispensational view of the covenant. However, it is not incidental that the word “seed” is singular and that Jesus Christ has only one spiritual body, which he always represents as the mediator ordained by the triune God. “If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (v. 29). “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12). Moreover, by way of implication, Paul contended that baptism is done under none other than the name of Christ, who is the undivided head of the church, his body (1:13–16). Thus there is only one mediator of the covenant, and in him only one people of God is revealed in the words of the covenant spoken not just to Abraham but to the other patriarchs of the old dispensation as well.

The one and the same substance.

The third aspect of the covenant is set forth in Genesis 17:10: “This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.” Circumcision and baptism serve that one substance of the covenant, and both belong to the third aspect of the same covenant, that is, the token of the covenant. External administrations of this one and the same covenant have been diverse throughout history. In the old dispensation the administrations were dispensed with other external signs, types, sacrifices, ceremonies, and prophecies. But the signification of these signs appeared more and more clearly as history progressed and when the revelation of God’s covenant progressed over time as the church in the wilderness matured into the new testament church. In the new dispensation, where all truths became more naked in their manner of dispensation, most especially when the fulfilment of the law and prophets came in servant form—Jesus Christ—the church did and does perceive the substance of the covenant as it remains under the gospel of the cross.

The signs are used to edify the people of God, but the signs have not always been the same, unlike the first aspect of the covenant—the bond. Though the signs may have been changed, nevertheless their spiritual significance remains. For instance, baptism signifies our spiritual entrance into the covenant, our children’s inclusion in the covenant, our inherited corruption and guilt, our passive reception of grace, our regeneration, the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ in us, our justification and forgiveness of sins, our part in the covenant to mortify the flesh, and most especially the blood of Jesus Christ that makes atonement for us. Those things that the signs signify remain, but the form has changed and circumcision has been abrogated according to the institution of Jesus Christ. Mind you, only God can institute, change, and abrogate the signs of the covenant. The Catechism by saying “Instead of which baptism is instituted in the new covenant” alludes to the mutable nature of the instituted signs. This is also taught in the baptism form: “Since then baptism is come in the place of circumcision, therefore infants are to be baptized” (Confessions and Church Order, 259). Nevertheless, as to the signs’ present institution and form, their importance must never be slighted. Hence the Catechism in answer 82 emphasizes that the covenant of God should not be profaned by an improper administration of the Lord’s supper and, by implication, by an improper administration of holy baptism. So also the Westminster Confession warns against the profaning of baptism as a great sin: “The infants of one or both believing parents are to be baptized,” for it is “a great sin to contemn or neglect this ordinance.”¹

To profane the signs is to profane the covenant itself or the immutable and ever-operating substance. The words and the signs both are inseparable from the first aspect, the bond, as it is the dominant aspect of the covenant. The words and the signs creaturely serve the end, namely, the covenant of God with his people, which in essence is one with our salvation in Jesus Christ. Under the gospel both the words and the signs are inseparable from the substance of the covenant. The two can have no meaning without the bond, which they signify.

Grounds for Baptizing Infants

The Catechism in question and answer 74 gives three grounds for the necessity of baptizing the infants of believers: first, infants are included in the covenant and the church of God as much as adults; second, the covenant promise is also for infants; and third, God instituted the signs of the covenant, like circumcision and baptism, to be applied to infants. If it is true that infants are included in the covenant and God’s church, the Second Helvetic Confession rhetorically asks,

Why, then, should not the sign of the covenant of God be given to them? Why should they not be consecrated by holy baptism, who are God’s peculiar people and are in the Church of God?²

Article 34 of the Belgic Confession says that baptizing our children should be done “upon the same promises” as given to the Jews in the old dispensation, which undoubtedly are applied to our children (Confessions and Church Order, 69). And the promises referred to are the different words of the covenant given to the patriarchs, which had one and the same substance—that is, I will be a God unto thee and to thy seed. By this, though not explicitly, the Belgic Confession asserts the inclusion of our children in the covenant as well as the children of Israel in the old dispensation, since the essence of the promise spoken and signified in the old dispensation does not change nor has been abrogated, though the old forms of the external signs have been changed accordingly.

Noticeably, the Belgic Confession is focused rather on grounding the baptism of our children in the application of the death of Jesus Christ, which is the blood of the new and better covenant, by explicitly saying,

Indeed Christ shed His blood no less for the washing of the children of the faithful than for adult persons; and therefore they ought to receive the sign and sacrament of that which Christ hath done for them; as the Lord commanded in the law that they should be made partakers of the sacrament of Christ’s suffering and death. (Confessions and Church Order, 69–70)

This is a consistent application of the blood of the new covenant rather than focusing on the old testament ceremony, which was of flesh and blood. Thus baptisms of the infants of believers do not belong to the old, Jewish ceremony but to the new covenant in which Christ commanded that infants be included, for his shed blood is far greater than the cutting of the foreskin of Jewish, male babies. Christ’s shed blood covers all the spiritual children of God—adults and infants alike and male and female alike. This is to say that believing parents and their children are organically one as a household in the church and as coheirs of God’s covenant.

This is the insistence of Canons of Dordrecht 1.17: “The children of believers are holy, not by nature, but in virtue of the covenant of grace in which they, together with the parents, are comprehended” (Confessions and Church Order, 159). In this light the Canons also insists on the spirituality of the covenant—that is, we do not baptize infants simply because they are children of believers, simply because they are the natural offspring of believers. Unless they repent, wayward and impenitent parents are suspended from receiving the privilege to have their children baptized. Parents who are not communicant members of a church cannot have their children baptized. This sacrament is a spiritual sign to signify spiritual realities; therefore, the parents are admonished in the baptism form that it is “not out of custom or superstition” that they present their children for baptism and that the church performs such a sacrament to them and solemnly witnesses while the children are being incorporated into the Christian church. Moreover, the Canons implies that not all infants are to be baptized. Only the children of believers are holy, not all children. Lastly, article 56 of the Church Order says, “The covenant of God shall be sealed unto the children of Christians by baptism, as soon as the administration thereof is feasible” (Confessions and Church Order, 397).

Children of Believers

Believers or Christians are those who publicly profess their faith in a holy congregation. The Westminster Larger Catechism teaches that the sacraments are for those “within the covenant of grace.” Baptism “is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church.” Moreover, the Larger Catechism says that “the parties baptized are solemnly admitted into the visible Church, and enter into an open and professed engagement to be wholly and only the Lord’s,” which reminds us of the necessity of church membership.³

Since Christ instituted the sacraments in the instituted church, no one has the right to define the term believers apart from this fact when the sacraments are being explained. Thus when article 34 of the Belgic Confession says that “baptism is for our children,” this must be perceived as the confession of the church as she manifests herself in the institute. Thus “our children” can only mean that we, the members of the Christian church, have children to be baptized as Christ commanded us to do. It is foolish to think that in relation to the sacraments, the term believers means the elect parents, as if the church were baptizing the children of the elect per se. The church has no power to know who are the elect. If that were the case, baptism would be open to all, even to those who are members of other churches or are not members of any church at all, as long as they are elect. Rather, the church baptizes the children of those whom the church is assured are believers by virtue of their public professions—that is, those who appear before the consistory to be received as members and those who publicly confess their faith before the congregation.

Why is that? Because the institute, the visible church, is weak and has infirmities. The Belgic Confession in article 33 humbly acknowledges this truth: “We believe that our gracious God, on account of our weakness and infirmities, hath ordained the sacraments for us” (Confessions and Church Order, 67). Therefore, Christ admonishes the church of this: “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matt. 7:20). As we see the visible signs being administered in church, we are admonished that those who are citizens of God’s kingdom are known by their fruits, that is, by their verbal confessions and lives. From this principle the church asks believers the following questions at their public confessions of faith, whereby they become communicant members:

1. Do you acknowledge the doctrine contained in the Old and New Testaments and in the Articles of the Christian faith and taught here in this Christian church to be the true and complete doctrine of salvation?

2. Have you resolved by the grace of God to adhere to this doctrine; to reject all heresies repugnant thereto; and to lead a new, godly life?

3. Will you submit to church government, and in case you should become delinquent (which may God graciously forbid), to church discipline? (Form for Public Confession of Faith, in Confessions and Church Order, 266)

And at the baptism of their children, the following questions are asked the parents to assure the congregation of the parents’ confessions of faith as they present their children:

First. Whether you acknowledge that although our children are conceived and born in sin, and therefore are subject to all miseries, yea, to condemnation itself, yet that they are sanctified in Christ, and therefore, as members of His Church ought to be baptized?

Secondly. Whether you acknowledge the doctrine which is contained in the Old and New Testament, and in the articles of the Christian faith, and which is taught here in this Christian church to be the true and perfect doctrine of salvation?

Thirdly. Whether you promise and intend to see these children, when come to the years of discretion (whereof you are either parent or witness), instructed and brought up in the aforesaid doctrine, or help or cause them to be instructed therein, to the utmost of your power? (Form for the Administration of Baptism, in Confessions and Church Order, 260)

The second question of the baptism form explicitly says that the parents must be members of the church where their children are being baptized. “Here in this Christian church” is not an incidental phrase that was included by the fathers without great reason. Rather, the phrase was rightly included in the baptism form in light of the first question for public confession of faith—that is, the administration of the sacrament of holy baptism presupposes the parents’ memberships in the church where they present their children. This insistence on the memberships of the parents is not strange but has become part of the confession of the church, as understood from the creeds, to guard the sacraments and to prevent the profanity of God’s covenant. Thus the 1837 Synod of Utrecht firmly confessed:

All who make public confession of faith and walk in conformity therewith must with their children be acknowledged as members of the church of Christ.

Confession of faith consists in the agreement from the heart that is made public by the acknowledgment with the mouth of all the chief articles of the Christian religion.⁴

The Reformed creeds and other confessions of the church are clear regarding the reason for baptizing our children. Preeminently, the reason is Jesus Christ—his covenant, his death and suffering, his words of institution, and his declaration that the promise is unto us and our children. Therefore Canons 1.17 admonishes believing parents thus:

Since we are to judge of the will of God from His Word, which testifies that the children of believers are holy, not by nature, but in virtue of the covenant of grace in which they, together with the parents, are comprehended, godly parents have no reason to doubt of the election and salvation of their children. (Confessions and Church Order, 159)

This article refers to the children who have not yet reached the years of discretion, since the context is the death of infants of godly parents. If you are thus convinced that your children are included in the covenant and in the church of God, let them receive the sacrament of holy baptism, “not out of custom or superstition” and “as soon as the administration thereof is feasible,” because they are “partakers of the sacrament of Christ’s suffering and death.”