Baptism in the Belgic Confession

Article 34: The Sacrament of Baptism

• 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.^76

  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 Pharoah, 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.

  For this reason we believe that anyone who aspires to reach eternal life ought to be baptized only once without ever repeating it– for we cannot be born twice. Yet this baptism is profitable not only when the water is on us and when we receive it but throughout our entire lives.

  For that reason we detest the error of the Anabaptists who are not content with a single baptism once received and also condemn the baptism of the children of believers. We believe our children ought to be baptized and sealed with the sign of the covenant, as little children were circumcised in Israel on the basis of the same promises made to our children.

  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.”^77

  ^76 Matt. 28:19 ^77 Col. 2:11

No additional commentary is needed, except to say that I read the Westminster Confession of Faith to be teaching the same doctrine that is here laid out, especially on the point about the baptism lasting one’s whole life.   That’s what “not limited to the time of administration” means.  This is in Calvin, Vermigli, Ames, Burgess, and others too.   It is a shame it isn’t in more places today.

Atonement and Offer in the Canons of Dort

Second Head Article 1: The Punishment Which God’s Justice Requires

God is not only supremely merciful, but also supremely just. His justice requires (as he has revealed himself in the Word) that the sins we have committed against his infinite majesty be punished with both temporal and eternal punishments, of soul as well as body. We cannot escape these punishments unless satisfaction is given to God’s justice.

Article 2: The Satisfaction Made by Christ

Since, however, we ourselves cannot give this satisfaction or deliver ourselves from God’s anger, God in his boundless mercy has given us as a guarantee his only begotten Son, who was made to be sin and a curse for us, in our place, on the cross, in order that he might give satisfaction for us.

Article 3: The Infinite Value of Christ’s Death

This death of God’s Son is the only and entirely complete sacrifice and satisfaction for sins; it is of infinite value and worth, more than sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world.

Article 4: Reasons for This Infinite Value

This death is of such great value and worth for the reason that the person who suffered it is–as was necessary to be our Savior–not only a true and perfectly holy man, but also the only begotten Son of God, of the same eternal and infinite essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Another reason is that this death was accompanied by the experience of God’s anger and curse, which we by our sins had fully deserved.

Article 5: The Mandate to Proclaim the Gospel to All

Moreover, it is the promise of the gospel that whoever believes in Christ crucified shall not perish but have eternal life. This promise, together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be announced and declared without differentiation or discrimination to all nations and people, to whom God in his good pleasure sends the gospel.

Article 6: Unbelief Man’s Responsibility

However, that many who have been called through the gospel do not repent or believe in Christ but perish in unbelief is not because the sacrifice of Christ offered on the cross is deficient or insufficient, but because they themselves are at fault.

Dort states the need for God’s justice to be satisfied, and then it goes on to show the infinite value of Christ’s satisfaction. Right away this means that there is no “limit” in the satisfying content of Christ’s death. It can neither go up nor down. It is infinite, and this is because God died in Christ.

We are also told that the gospel of Christ crucified, and I would suppose that we are allowed to connect this to the previously stated fact that this crucifixion is more than sufficient to atone for the sins of the entire world, is to be preached to all without discrimination. There’s your free offer of the gospel.

Later in the third and fourth head, the canons of Dort say this:

Article 8: The Serious Call of the Gospel

Nevertheless, all who are called through the gospel are called seriously. For seriously and most genuinely God makes known in his Word what is pleasing to him: that those who are called should come to him. Seriously he also promises rest for their souls and eternal life to all who come to him and believe.

Article 9: Human Responsibility for Rejecting the Gospel

The fact that many who are called through the ministry of the gospel do not come and are not brought to conversion must not be blamed on the gospel, nor on Christ, who is offered through the gospel, nor on God, who calls them through the gospel and even bestows various gifts on them, but on the people themselves who are called. Some in self-assurance do not even entertain the Word of life; others do entertain it but do not take it to heart, and for that reason, after the fleeting joy of a temporary faith, they relapse; others choke the seed of the Word with the thorns of life’s cares and with the pleasures of the world and bring forth no fruits. This our Savior teaches in the parable of the sower (Matt. 13).

This states that God genuinely desires for all who are called to come to Him. If people do not come to faith is wholly their own fault. They did not receive the gospel.

Of course Dort goes on to explain how the Spirit heals and revives the fallen will, allowing it to actually accept the gospel message, so that just as the faith is a gift of God, it is also truly done by the human. There’s no monothelitism at work here.

I do not believe that Dort says all that can be said about the various degrees of temporary and fleeting faith, nor does it sufficiently explain those who might seem to be worked upon by the Spirit for a season, but then fall away. Any failings it has in this area are in the realm of omission though, and so I am not objecting to the words given. I am more and more satisfied with them actually.

The Free Offer of the Gospel

One Presbyterian position that not many people seem to be fully aware of today is what is known as “the free offer of the gospel.” One of the foremost representatives of this teaching is John Murray, and he authored an influential essay by that title.

Dr. R. Scott Clark explains its thesis when he writes:

“Murray understands rightly that this sovereign God is also free to reveal himself as desiring certain things which he also reveals that he has not willed decretively. Here Murray invoked an ancient distinction in Christian theology, between God’s will considered decretively and preceptively. That is, it is not that God has two wills, but that, given the archetypal/ectypal distinction, there is a distinction to be made in our understanding of his will.”

Now to Murray’s words:

It would appear that the real point in dispute in connection with the free offer of the gospel is whether it can properly be said that God desires the salvation of all men. The Committee elected by the Twelfth General Assembly in its report to the Thirteenth General Assembly said “God not only delights in the penitent but is also moved by the riches of his goodness and mercy to desire the repentance and salvation of the impenitent and reprobate” (Minutes, p. 67). It should have been apparent that the aforesaid Committee, in predicating such “desire” of God, was not dealing with the decretive will of God; it was dealing with the free offer of the gospel to all without distinction and that surely respects, not the decretive or secret will of God, but the revealed will. There is no ground for the supposition that the expression was intended to refer to God’s decretive will.

He concludes:

The full and free offer of the gospel is a grace bestowed upon all. Such grace is necessarily a manifestation of love or lovingkindness in the heart of God. And this lovingkindness is revealed to be of a character or kind that is correspondent with the grace bestowed. The grace offered is nothing less than salvation in its richness and fulness. The love or lovingkindness that lies back of that offer is not anything less; it is the will to that salvation. In other words, it is Christ in all the glory of his person and in all the perfection of his finished work whom God offers in the gospel. The loving and benevolent will that is the source of that offer and that grounds its veracity and reality is the will to the possession of Christ and the enjoyment of the salvation that resides in him.

The free offer of the gospel is crucial for all Calvinists who hold to what is known as “limited atonement.” Typically denying this is enough to get one labeled a hyper-Calvinist, though of course there is always more to the discussion. All atonement debates aside, the mainstream orthodox conservative Presbyterian position is that God desires the salvation of all men.

As far as Reformed preaching goes, the gospel (ie. forgiveness of sins, justification, adoption- the whole thing) should be set forth indiscriminately to the congregation, and the single condition is that it must be received by faith.

Faith is not a work, but a receptive instrument, and thus the atonement is objective and real, and the application is subjective and conditioned. In my opinion this answers many problems and keeps a consistent systematic theology in line with our understanding of union with Christ and the sacraments. The reality is there, and it must be received by faith.