Westminster Shorter Catechism #96 Part 2

Q. What is the Lord’s Supper?
A. The Lord's supper is a sacrament, wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine according to Christ's appointment, his death is showed forth; and the worthy receivers are, not after a corporal and carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace. 
Luke 22:19–20 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. 

Last week's blog focused on the Old Testament roots of the Lord's Supper. I encourage you to read it as well as the blog post on "what is a sacrament?" before reading this blog. 

This week I want to focus more on what the catechism says about the Lord's Supper, that is, the more theological side to this sacrament. If you have worshiped with us at Proclamation, you know we place a high value on the Lord's Supper. We celebrate it every Lord's Day when we gather for worship. Some may ask, "why do you have the Lord's Supper every week?" Hopefully after reading this post and the posts that have come before it, you will begin to see why we place such a high importance on the sacrament.

The Lord's Supper as a Remembrance

First in the catechism, we see that this sacrament shows us Christ's death. We're shown this in the institution of the sacrament when Jesus says, "Do this in remembrance of me". In the "remembrance" clause of the sacrament, it's important to keep in mind that the meal itself is, in it's very nature, a commemoration. The meal serves as a memorial, a monument of sorts, to the act of Christ's sacrifice on the cross. We often think of the language of "do this in remembrance of me" as an action we are to do. And certainly, the meal should cause us to reflect upon the death of Christ. But we want to remember that the meal itself serves as the memorial. In other words, the meal is the "remembrance", whether those who partake "remember" Christ's death or not. Just as the Lincoln Memorial or the Washington Monument in Washington DC serve as memorials in and of themselves that, in turn, lead us to remember, so too is the Lord's Supper a monument to the death of Christ that, in turn, drives us to reflect upon and remember the central act of redemption in Scriptures-the death of Jesus Christ.

Now many Protestants stop there. There are many who believe that this is all the meal does. It simply reminds us what Christ did in his death. Historically though, as divided as the universal church has been over what is happening in the Lord's Supper, one thing most branches of Christ's Church have believed is that the meal is not merely a memorial, nor does it simply serve as a sign of Christ's death on the cross. And the Reformed heritage continues in this tradition of the church universal. We've already seen this with the post on what a sacrament is, and our post last week about the Old Testament roots of the Lord's Supper where we discussed the reality that in it's Old Testament roots, the meal also serves as proclamation that we are at peace with God and at peace with one another. 

The Elements of the Supper as the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ

One area of major division in Christ's Church is the issue of how the bread and cup are the body and blood of Christ.  We would fully affirm that the bread and cup are the body and blood of Christ, but what do we mean by that? Notice the catechism states that the bread and the cup are not the body and blood of Christ "after a corporal or carnal manner". In other words, while the Westminster Divines want to affirm that the bread and wine are indeed Christ's body and blood, they want to reject any idea that somehow Christ is physically present in the elements themselves. This is a rejection of both the Roman Catholic doctrine of "transubstantiation", where when the priest consecrates the elements the bread and wine actually and truly become the body and blood of Jesus; and too the Lutheran view where Christ is physically "in, with, and under" the bread and wine (Luther too rejects transubstantiation, believing that the bread and wine remain bread and wine, but are united to the real body and blood of Jesus physically). If the elements of bread and wine remain bread and wine, if Christ is not physically present with the elements, then in what way can we say that the bread and wine is the body and blood of Christ? The Westminster Divines (the men who wrote the confession and catechisms) insist the answer is in how the Bible uses "sacramental language". Their argument is an issue of interpretation. Scripture often speaks of the sign as if it is the thing signified. So, a good example of this is Genesis 17. In Gen. 17:10 God declares, "This is my covenant, which you shall keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised." Here, the very words of God state that circumcision is the covenant. Yet just a verse later in vs 11, God says, "You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you." We know the covenant (the promise) between God and Abraham is the promise to make Abraham the father of many nations, to give him an inheritance, and to give him a land. Circumcision is not the covenant, but rather, a sign of the covenant. And yet, circumcision as the sign of the covenant is spoken of in vs 10 as if it is the covenant itself. This is "sacramental language". This is an example of how the sign is spoken of as if it is the very thing signified. And this is not the only place in Scripture where this happens. Baptism, for example, is spoken of as if it is salvation in 1 Peter 3. Peter writes in 3:21, "Baptism...now saves you." There are very few people who would say that baptism, in and of itself, actually saves. And if you read all of 1 Peter 3, it is clear that Peter is saying that it is what baptism represents that saves. But here, again, is this sacramental language where the sign is spoken of as if it is the thing signified. And when we see this use of language throughout Scripture, we can understand in what sense Jesus would say, "this is my body, this is my blood", and we can with confidence use the same language when speaking of the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper.

The Real Presence of Christ in the Supper

Another area of division over the Lord's Supper is the issue of whether Christ is present in the meal. We see some obvious connections to this in the discussion around the elements of the supper being the body and blood of Christ. The Roman and Lutheran view obviously have Christ physically present, which we see in their understanding of the elements of the meal. But the Reformed view also insists Christ is present in the meal, but he is present in a spiritual, not physical, sense. Why are the Reformers so insistent that Christ is not physically present in the elements of the Lord's Supper? The simple reason is because they wanted to preserve the humanity of the ascended Jesus. When Jesus ascended into heaven, he ascended body and soul. If you remember way back to the question of the catechism, "Who is the Redeemer of God's elect?" The answer reminds us that Jesus, as the redeemer of God's elect, as the eternal Son of God, became man and continues to be God and man in two distinct natures, yet one person forever.  Jesus is eternally fully God and fully man. And Christ's physical body has only the attributes of a physical body! Physical bodies, even glorified and resurrected bodies, are not physically present in more than one place at a time. If anyone would question Christ's ability to be in more than one place at a time physically, Calvin would point to our own resurrection of the body. Since Jesus is the first-fruits of all of us who will one day receive glorified resurrection bodies, since Christ is the "prototype", so to speak, of our own resurrection of the body, what is said of his resurrection body can also be said of our own resurrection bodies. This is an important point! Unless we are willing to confess that in our own resurrection bodies, we will have the ability to be more than one place at one time (and Calvin asks, who would ever say that?), how could we embrace a doctrine that would say that the embodied Jesus, who is still truly man, is physically in more than one place at a time? To make Christ physically present in the Lord's Supper, then, is to "empty heaven of Jesus Christ" (since in order to be physically present in the supper he would have to descend from heaven), and would be a denial of his true humanity. Calvin says that to make Christ physically present in multiple places at once (as he would have to be, given the reality that the sacrament is celebrated in multiple places at once) confuses the attributes of a body with the attributes of a spirit. Spirits can be omni-present, bodies cannot. 

Some may respond, "But Jesus is not only fully man, he is also fully God! And God is omnipresent!" To this point, the Reformers saw the Holy Spirit as the instrumental person in uniting the elements of the Lord's Supper and those who participate by faith to the embodied Jesus Christ. Just as Christ is able to dwell in the hearts of all his people through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, so too is Christ, through the Spirit,  able to be present at the Lord's Table! It is the Holy Spirit who unites us to Jesus Christ in the supper. It is the Holy Spirit who unites the elements of the meal, when received in faith, with the body and blood of Jesus. This is why Calvin is able to say that just as bread and wine nourish the body, so too does the flesh and blood of Jesus nourish the souls of those who eat in faith at the Lord's Supper. And for the Reformers, it is not so much an issue of the Holy Spirit bringing Christ down to us in the meal, but rather, in taking us up to Christ!

This video from Michael Horton is very helpful in explaining the Reformed understanding of this (he also goes into, at the end, some interesting historical developments of the theology around the Lord's Supper that isn't particularly relevant to this blog post, but some may find interesting):

All this is to say this:  Yes, Christ is really and truly present. Yes, we participate really and truly in the body and blood of Christ. Yes, our souls are nourished and feast upon the body and blood of Christ. The Lord's Supper is more than just symbolic, it is more than just a memorial, it is an active means of grace whereby we, as God's people, when received in faith, are fed and nourished with Jesus Christ himself. It is a means of grace that, through the physical elements of the Lord's Supper, by the work of the Holy Spirit, proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ to us in a tangible, physical way. Given all of this, when answering the question as to why we at Proclamation have the Lord's Supper every week, the answer will always be, "why wouldn't we have the Lord's Supper as often as possible!?"

This blog was written by Andy Styer

Westminster Shorter Catechism #96 Part 1

Q. What is the Lord’s Supper?
A. The Lord's supper is a sacrament, wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine according to Christ's appointment, his death is showed forth; and the worthy receivers are, not after a corporal and carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace. 
 Luke 22:19–20 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. 

Due to the size of this subject, I've decided to break this question up into two blog entries. Part one will focus more on the Old Testament background of the Lord's Supper, and part 2 will focus on the theology of this sacrament.

The subject of the Lord's Supper is a topic that, in our day, seems less controversial than infant baptism. But it has, in the history of the Church, caused probably more division among the people of God than any other issue. Which, considering what the Lord's Supper is; what it does, what it means, and what it represents, is quite an ironic tragedy. But, as J. Gresham Machen wrote once, the bigger tragedy would be to simply say, "it doesn't matter". What we believe about the sacraments, be it baptism or the Lord's Supper, does, indeed matter. It is instrumental to the life of God's people and to their discipleship. 

As we saw with baptism, the New Testament sacraments don't exist in a bubble. They don't come out of nowhere. They aren't "new inventions". They have their grounding and backing in the Old Testament. And when dealing with the theology of the Lord's Supper, there are two main Old Testament ceremonies that can help us understand this sacrament; the feast of Passover, and the peace (sometimes called "fellowship") offering, which was part of the sacrificial system of the Tabernacle/Temple.

Passover, of course, is the most obvious connection since it was at a Passover meal where Christ instituted the sacrament. Passover served as a remembrance celebration of the faithfulness of God in keeping his promise that, if the Israelites would kill a lamb without blemish and spread his blood over the doors of their houses, God would indeed deliver his people out of the bondage of slavery in Egypt. It was the moment that sparked the exodus of God's people out of slavery and began their journey to the Promise Land. The exodus out of Egypt was Israel's "Easter". It was the central theme of redemption in the Old Testament. And it is fitting that on the eve of Christ's crucifixion, on the eve of the day when the truly pure and spotless Lamb of God would spill his own blood to cover his people so that we would be delivered from the bondage of slavery to sin, death, and the devil, on the eve of the central act of redemption not only in the New Testament but in the whole of Scripture itself, Christ would give us our own remembrance meal. During Proclamation's sermon series on the book of Mark, Troy went into the connection of the Lord's Supper and Passover. I encourage you to listen to that sermon (LINK) to hear a great summary and explanation of this connection. 

But Passover is only one side of understanding the Old Testament roots of the Lord's Supper. Another aspect of understanding this sacrament is understanding the Old Testament peace/fellowship offering. This, as I said earlier, was part of the Tabernacle/Temple sacrificial system. Now, perhaps too often we tend to think about the Old Testament sacrificial system in broad terms. We can forget that when we read through Leviticus, there are many different types of sacrifices and offerings made and these offerings signified different things. The burnt offering, for example, is quite different than the grain, sin, or peace offerings. In the burnt offering, God consumes the entire sacrifice in the fire on the altar. It is based in the acknowledgement of sin and the need for atonement, that because of sin we deserve death, but unlike the various sin offerings that are later described in Leviticus, it is not offered up for any specific sin. Rather, it symbolizes a complete consecration of the worshiper to the service of the LORD. If we had to compare it to anything in our modern liturgy, we might compare this to an invocation or a call to worship. The grain offering, which is the next offering described in Leviticus, is where the priests threw a handful of grain on the altar and then would consume the rest. This was not only a way for priests to receive nourishment, but it also reminded God's people of their need for a mediator between themselves and God. God consumes part of the grain, the priest, serving as a go-between between God and the people, consumes the rest of the offering. The priest gets to, this time, participate in the offering by consuming part of it, but the laypeople of Israel do not eat. Following the grain offering, we read about the peace offering in Leviticus 3. This is a unique offering where the entrails and the fat of the animal were consumed on the altar, and the lay people consumed the meat of the animal. This is the only offering that the community at large would get to eat of, and by doing so the offering showed something very special to God's people. By God consuming part of the sacrifice and the people consuming part of the sacrifice, it showed the people of God that they now had peace, shalom, fellowship with God and with each other as they ate of this communal meal. And this is what the Lord's Supper shows us too. Jesus Christ, the spotless Lamb of God, was offered up on the altar of the cross where God would consume of the whole sacrifice. There, on the cross, our sins were completely and finally atoned for when the perfect sacrifice was offered up once and for all time. But now we get to eat of the sacrifice! We, when we eat of the bread and drink the cup, are participating in the body and blood of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 10:16). We are participating in this peace/fellowship offering. We are showing in a real, tangible way that we, as the people of God, as the covenant community of God, are now at peace with God because of the the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It shows restored communion and fellowship with God and with each other as the covenant people. 

One last note on the Old Testament background of the Lord's Supper. I want to address an idea that the shorter catechism doesn't go into, but is addressed in the Westminster Confession, and that is the idea of private communion services. The Lord's Supper, having it's roots in Passover and in the peace/fellowship offering, is by it's very nature a communal meal. Passover was a communal meal, the peace offerings were communal meals and these were not things that were done apart from a gathering of God's people. These meals expressed the reality of the covenant relationship, and we know that the reality of our covenant relationship with God is not only that we as individuals are brought back into fellowship, but we as his people are at peace with God and brought back into fellowship with him and each other. We have to remember what was lost in the Fall. It wasn't just peace with God that was lost, but also peace between ourselves and our fellow human beings. But the reality of Christ's redemption is that Christ is restoring all that was lost in the Fall. Redemption, as Isaac Watts put it, is "as far as the curse is found". These covenant meals, be it Passover, be it the peace/fellowship offerings, or be it the Lord's Supper, are reminders of the completeness of Christ's redemption. They are reminders that we have been saved as individuals to be part of a people. To participate in the covenant meal, the Lord's Supper, apart from the covenant community contradicts the reality that the meal is supposed to show us. If we are united to Christ, then we are also united to each other as the body of Christ. Or, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:17, "Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread."

This blog was written by Andy Styer

Westminster Shorter Catechism #95

Q. To whom is baptism administered?
A. Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church, till they profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him; but the infants of such as are members of the visible church are to be baptized. 
Genesis 17:7 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

I know the temptation is to just jump right into the issue of infant baptism, but I urge you, if you have not read our prior blogs on what sacraments are and what baptism is, please do so. As I said in those posts, there's absolutely no point in talking about who should receive the sacraments if we do not understand what they are and what their nature is. 

This week's question gives us two answers as to who should receive the sign of baptism. The first answer is a fairly accepted concept among Christians. No one outside of the visible church, that is, no one outside of that "outer" covenant community that we talked about last week, should receive the sign of baptism. That is because, by it's very nature, baptism is a sign and seal of our entrance into the covenant community. It is a sign and seal of a person's inclusion into the covenant that Christ has made with his people. Now, we talked last time about how this outer covenant community is a mixed community. That means that there are true believers who are part of it, and there are those who have professed with their lips but not believed in their hearts who are also part of this community. This is important to understand. Many people use the term, "believer's baptism". That term is not helpful because the reality is, whether you are baptizing infants or you are only baptizing people who are old enough to make a profession of faith, every church is baptizing people who are not truly Christians. Perhaps a better term to use is "professer's baptism". Notice the catechism says the sign should not be given until a person "professes" their faith in Christ. The London Baptist Confession of 1689 uses the same language. This is because these confessions recognize that baptism is based upon a profession of faith, not the true heart-condition of the person being baptized. The best the church can do is to judge whether or not a person's profession of faith is sincere or not, and apply the sacrament accordingly. And no church will ever get that right 100% of the time. So we end up with a visible church, an "outer covenant community" that is a mixed number. And it always has been that way. There were people who, in the Old Testament, were circumcised, who went through the ceremonial washings, who were not truly "of Israel". We baptize based upon what we judge to be a credible profession of faith with the full realization that we can and are wrong on many occasions. We baptize in hopes that the person will live out the reality of what their baptism points to. We baptize with the hopes that in bringing this person into the visible community of God, as he or she is exposed to the community of the church and the church's religious life, as he or she is exposed to the ordinary means of grace week after week, the Holy Spirit will make sure that the seed of that person's faith is planted in good soil. 

Now, some may argue against the idea that in the New Covenant, there is a visible/invisible, an outer/inner distinction to the covenant community. This is based upon Jeremiah 31:31-34 and an understanding of that passage that leads some to believe that all who are part of the New Covenant community are those who have experienced both regeneration and the full forgiveness of their sins. The problem with this understanding of Jeremiah 31 though is the fact that it doesn't match the reality of the New Testament church as we see in the epistles of the Apostles, or in the book of Acts. We still quite clearly see a "mixed company" in the New Covenant community. We have every reason to believe, given the content of many of the New Testament writings, that the covenant community, the local visible churches, do indeed contain those who's profession of faith would prove to be true, and those who's profession of faith would prove to be false. The covenant community is, even in the New Covenant, made up of a visible and invisible reality. And that's important to remember, particularly as we talk about what baptism is, what it does, and who should receive the sign. 

As we now talk about why we baptize infants, I encourage you again to remember that what happens in the New Testament does not happen in a bubble. We saw last week how baptism has its roots in two very important Old Testament rituals; ceremonial washings and circumcision. And we saw how those ceremonies changed a person's administrative status from "unclean" (or "unholy" in a ceremonial sense) to "clean" (or, ceremonially holy). Those ceremonies gave a person access to the benefits of the covenant community such as participation in the religious life of Israel, participation in the community of believers, it got them within the "proximity of the gospel" where they would be exposed to the means of grace, and so on. And we see how baptism really does do the same thing. Baptism brings a person into the covenant community (not the invisible, inner covenant community unless you believe in baptismal regeneration, but rather, that "outer" community) where they can participate in the religious life of the church. Baptism brings you into membership within a local church body. Baptism gives you access to the Lord's Supper. Baptism gets you into "the proximity of the gospel" as it is preached in both word and sacrament. This is why baptism is part of Christian discipleship! This is why, when Jesus gave the Great Commission and commanded his followers to "make disciples", he said that we do it by baptizing them and teaching them everything Christ has told us. And so the question is, if we understand and believe all this, why wouldn't we give the sign of baptism to our children? If the sign of the covenant was freely given to the children of believing households in the Old Covenant, and if there is continuity between the Old and New Covenants, that is, if they are both expressions of the same Covenant of Grace, and if the New Testament sacraments don't happen within a bubble but rather, build upon what came before them, if the New Testament never gives us the command to stop giving the sign of that covenant to our children, and we all agree that we are to make disciples of our children, then on what grounds do we withhold the covenant sign from our children? 

We are fully aware that some will say, "The Bible never tells us to baptize our infants and we have no example of infants being baptized in the New Testament". That is true in once sense, but we could say in response, "The Bible never tells us to withhold the covenant sign from our children until they are old enough to make a credible profession of faith for themselves either, nor do we have any New Testament example of a child growing up in a believing household who had the covenant sign withheld from him until he was old enough to make a profession of faith." So on some level, both sides of this debate are arguing from silence. But the question is, if we are both arguing from silence, which side of the debate has the burden of proof? This is what John Frame says about this issue:

We can assume continuity with the Old Testament principle of administering the sign of the covenant to children, unless the New Testament evidence directs us otherwise, and this is the paedobaptist (infant baptist) approach. Or we can assume that only adult believers are to be baptized, unless there is New Testament evidence to the contrary and this is the baptist approach. On the first approach, the burden of proof is on the baptist to show New Testament evidence against infant baptism. On the second approach, the burden of proof is on the paedobaptist to show New Testament evidence for it. In this case, deciding the burden of proof pretty much decides the question, since there is little explicit New Testament evidence on either side and since the two parties are essentially agreed on the Old Testament data. It seems to me that the first approach is correct: the church of the New Testament is essentially the same as the church of the Old.

If John Frame is right, then it means that ultimately the burden of proof, when arguing from silence, falls on those who would cut the ties of covenant continuity between the Old and New Covenant.  But Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost show us this continuation with the Old Testament covenant community when he says, "For the promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself." Peter is taking words here from Deuteronomy 29:28 when Moses writes, "But the things that are revealed belong to us and our children." Of course, Peter also includes the Gentiles now in this promise ("for all who are far off"), as a fulfillment to God's original promise to Abraham that he would make Abraham the father of "many nations". But here, in a New Covenant reality, Peter reemphasizes the idea that the covenant promises are not only for us, but also for our children. They always have been, and they still are today. 

We also see this strong continuation with the Old Testament in the household baptisms of the book of Acts. Some will rightly point out that, "we don't know if any infants were included in those baptisms". But, that's not the point. The point is that when the head of household converted to Christianity, he (or in the case of Lydia, "she"), had their entire household baptized. They all received the sign of the covenant. This is in lines with what we see happening in Genesis 17, where after Abraham received the sign of the covenant, every male in his house was also circumcised. The issue is not whether there were infants in the household, the issue is, the head of the household is acting as a covenant representative for his wife, children, and even his servants, and the household receives the sign of the covenant based upon the faith of the head of the house. The promise was for Abraham and his children, and his children received the sign and seal of that promise.

The real question concerning baptism, then, is this. Are our children part of the covenant community, or aren't they? If they aren't, then I agree the sign of baptism should be withheld from them. But I encourage you to think about the ramifications of that. Not only does it mean that your child should not receive baptism, but it also means you treat them as someone who is outside the covenant community. I know of no Christian parent who treats their children as if they're outside the covenant community. Todd Pruitt, a PCA pastor, once said, concerning this point and his own Baptist upbringing, that: 

"My parents instinctively knew that there would be something different about a child born into a Christian home than a child born into a non-Christian home...There's a Biblical instinct, if you like, that pointed them to the fact that you don't treat their own children like the reprobate...They recognized instinctually that God has given proactive grace to that child by placing him or her in a Christian home."

His point is a good one. Instinctually, even those who would not baptize infants recognize that there is a special grace given to the children of believers. We believe God has already been gracious to them by placing them within a Christian home. We do not treat them as the reprobate, as those outside of the covenant community. And while we also don't assume that they are Christians, as we still proclaim Christ to them and pray for them, we also don't treat them as non-believers who are cut off from the communion and fellowship of the covenant community. And, as we have every reason to believe from the testimony of Scripture from the earliest pages of the Old Testament up through the New, if children are part of the covenant community, then by all means, we should be giving the sign of that covenant to our them! 

The New Covenant is more inclusive in every way from the Old. As I said in prior posts, yes there is continuity between the old and new covenants, but there are some things that are "new", that is, expanded upon, in the New Covenant. Baptism is a good example of this. In the Old Covenant, it was the males only who received the sign of the covenant. But in the New Covenant, male and female now receive the sign of the covenant. And if the New Covenant is more inclusive, if it expands in the New Testament to Jew and Gentile, to male and female, then why would people, such as our children, who were previously part of the covenant community, now be excluded? Brothers and sisters, our children, the children of believers are part of the covenant community. The promise is for them. Let us gladly mark them with the sign and seal of the covenant, and pray fervently that just as they are now ceremonially marked as clean, ceremonially marked as holy, they would, through the power of the Holy Spirit as he works through the family, the church, and through the ordinary means of grace, grow to become spiritually clean and holy.  

*A great debt of gratitude is due to C. John Collins and his essay, "What does baptism do for anyone?", published in the "Presbyterion", Spring 2012. The essay served as an invaluable resource as I've worked on this series of blogs. 

This blog was written by Andy Styer

Westminster Shorter Catechism #94

Q: What is baptism?
A: 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. 
Matthew 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 

As I said in my prior post, we get a lot of questions about why we baptize infants. It may be one of the more "controversial" points of doctrine within Presbyterianism. And, as I also said, I won't be saying anything new here in these blog posts. But what I would like to do, even before discussing infant baptism, is present a theological survey, guided by the Scriptures and the catechism this week, of what baptism is. And, as noted in the prior blog, we need to understand the New Testament sacraments not only within the context of the New Testament, but also within the context of the whole of Scripture. If we don't understand the Old Testament roots of the sacraments, we will never understand their use, their application, and how God uses them as means of grace.

The catechism speaks of baptism being a sign and seal, marking our participation in the benefits of the "covenant of grace", and it's important to note that a major way in which the New Testament relates to the Old Testament is the fact that believers in both testaments were and are under the very same covenant of grace. The covenant God made with Abraham, for example, is the same covenant God made with David is the same covenant Jeremiah would predict is the same covenant Christ established the night before he was betrayed which is the same covenant we are now under. And while each covenant would reveal a little more about the covenant of grace, about God's plan to redeem a people for himself, it is all part of the same covenant. So when we get to the "new covenant" we must remember it is not entirely "new". There are new things about it, new things revealed to us in light of the coming of the Messiah, but the "new covenant" is really a RE-newed covenant between God and his people. There are no new terms and conditions, there is no new path of salvation laid out in the new covenant. It is all part of the same covenant of grace that God had already established. And when we understand this covenantal continuity between the Old and New Testaments, we begin to see how the Bible really is one story of God redeeming a people to be part of his eternal kingdom. It is one, unified history of redemption.

I know that one thing that used to puzzle me is the question, "where did baptism come from?" John the Baptist, for example, appears on the scene baptizing people in the New Testament. Christ, before his ascension, gives the command to baptize but never explains what it is. Somehow, somewhere, the Jewish people of the first century knew what baptism was! It would be wrong to say that John the Baptist "invented" the idea of baptism. The catechism begins by defining baptism with the phrase, "the washing with water". And here, I think, is the answer to the question, "where did baptism come from?" The idea of washing with water can easily be connected to the Levitical ceremonial washings, which every Jew in the first century would have been familiar with. Under the Levitical law, there are lists of things that are "clean" and "unclean". Certain animals were labeled as clean or unclean, certain activities, such as touching the corpse of a dead family member made you unclean, and of course, sin made you unclean. Being unclean is not a statement of being sinful (who would be sinning by touching the corpse of a dead family member to prepare the body for burial, for example?), but rather, it was a ceremonial distinction. Who is permitted or not permitted to participate in the religious life of Israel? Only those who are ceremonially declared as "clean". And how did one become ceremonially clean? There are many instructions in the book of Leviticus for this, and most of those instructions include the idea of washing with water. But the important thing to remember is, the ceremonial washings with water did not reflect on the condition of a person's heart, but rather, it changed a person's administrative status. In other words, it changed a person's ceremonial standing from unclean to clean, from unholy to holy in a ritualistic sense so that that person could participate in the religious life of Israel. And by being made ceremonially clean, by being made ceremonially holy, a person would then be a recipient of the benefits of being able to participate in Israel's religious ceremonies. The hope would be, then, that because they are ceremonially clean and able to participate in the religious life of Israel, their hearts would be changed and they would become not only declared holy (clean) on a ritualistic level, but also holy in their hearts. And Jews in the first century, again, who would be quite familiar with all of this, would understand at least on this level the idea of baptism, of "washing with water". 

Now, that's a lot of Old Testament to digest! But as I said, we cannot and will not understand New Testament theology without understanding it's foundation, which is the Old Testament. And as understanding ceremonial washings helps us understand baptism, so too does the sign and seal of circumcision, which is very much tied to this idea of "ceremonial washings". Circumcision was a sign and seal, a statement of administrative change (again, not a change in one's heart, but rather, in one's ceremonial standing) from "unholy" to "holy", from "unclean" to "clean", in the Old Covenant. Circumcision got you into the visible covenant community of God (the people of Israel). It was a visible sign that you were set apart and included in this people. This is why anyone who "converted" to Judaism in the Old Testament had to be circumcised. This is why, in the days of the early Church, there were a lot of discussions about whether the Gentiles who converted to Christianity should be circumcised or not. It was a sign that you now were part of the covenant people. And baptism, as a sign and seal, does the same thing in the new covenant. It's a visible, physical marking out, a sign and seal of one's change in "administrative status", a change from one being considered "unclean" to being considered "clean". It's what "gets you in" to the visible people of God (remember from last week, sacraments act as seals in that we receive a confirmation that we are the recipients of the benefits of the covenant community). This is why when someone outside of the covenant community (the visible church) professes faith in Christ, they are to receive the sign of baptism. This is why baptism is required for membership into the visible covenant community, that is, the local church. This is why baptism is required before someone is able to participate in the Lord's Supper. 

It is important to note that the catechism says baptism "signifies and seals" our ingrafting into Christ. It does not say that baptism "achieves" our ingrafting into Christ. What the catechism is saying here is that to be "baptized into Christ", as Paul would say, is not a statement of salvation, but rather, is a covenantal term. When Paul speaks of us being baptized into Christ, he is using covenantal language. He is using Old Testament language. He is not saying that being baptized into Christ achieves our union with Christ in terms of salvation, but rather, in terms of getting us into the covenant community of which Christ is the head. If anyone would understand his words in terms of salvation, that person is confessing baptismal regeneration whether they realize it or not. They are essentially saying that it is baptism, ultimately, that achieves our union with Christ. But Jesus Christ as the head of the church is not just a reality for the invisible people of God, but also the reality for the visible people of God. He is the one who represents God's covenant people, visible and invisible, before God's throne, much the same that Moses or Abraham or David represented the visible covenant people before God. An example of this is how Paul talked about being "baptized into Moses" in 1 Corinthians. No one was saved in a final sense by being "in" (or "under") Moses. Rather, Moses was acted as the covenant representative of the people before God. And just as circumcision was a sign and seal of being included into the covenant people, it put them, administratively, under the covenant representative, it made a person "ceremonially holy" so that the person could be included in the religious life of Israel and expose them to the benefits of being part of that religious community, so too is baptism a sign and seal of being "ceremonially holy". It puts them into the covenant people, with Christ as the covenant representative, and allows them to participate in the benefits of being part of the covenant body. It allows a person to participate in the religious life of God's people. And what are the benefits of the covenant of grace that a person gets to participate in once they're baptized? Some of the benefits are full participation in worship, the benefit of being in fellowship with the people of God, the benefit of sitting under the administration of the gospel, be it in preaching or in the Lord's Supper, and so on.

One way that may be helpful in thinking about this is if we think of the covenant community, be it OT Israel or the NT church, in terms of an outer and inner covenant community. The inner covenant community is the true people of God, those who have been made new creations in Christ, and the outer covenant community being the professing people of God which is a mixed number. That means that in the "outer" community, there are those who profess faith who truly do have faith in Christ, and those who profess faith who do not truly have faith. What circumcision in the Old Covenant and baptism in the New Covenant did and does is, it got you into that "outer community". It put you, as one of my seminary professors said, into the "proximity of the gospel" where you are constantly exposed to and can participate in the benefits of the covenant of grace. This "division" between the outer and inner covenant community is why Paul could say in Romans 9 that "not all who are of Israel are Israel". Just because a person was part of that "outer" covenant community, the visible Israel, and had received the sign and seal of that community (circumcision) it did not mean they were part of the true Israel, those who "children of the promise". And likewise, we could say that not all who are of the church (those who have been baptized in the flesh) are the church (part of the "inner" people of God-those who have received the "circumcision of the heart").

As you can see, this is a very "covenantal" way of understanding baptism, but that's good! The Bible is a very "covenantal" book because our God is a very covenantal God! He relates to individuals and people by means of covenants. So why shouldn't our understanding of how those covenants work and who the covenant people are guide and shape our understanding of the sacraments? 

I realize, this is a lot to take in. This is the longest blog we've done in the catechism series (so far...), and it is by no means exhaustive! But I believe it's so vital that we understand the nature of baptism before we can even begin to discuss who should receive the sign and seal, which we will begin to discuss with the next question of the catechism. There is no point in discussing the administration of a sacrament until we understand it's nature, and hopefully this post helps us understand a little more clearly the nature of the sacrament of baptism. 

This blog was written by Andy Styer

Westminster Shorter Catechism #92 & 93

Q 92: What is a sacrament?
A: A sacrament is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ; wherein, by sensible signs, Christ, and the benefits of the new covenant, are represented, sealed, and applied to believers.
1 Corinthians 10:16-17 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

Q 93: Which are the sacraments of the New Testament? 
A: The sacraments of the New Testament are baptism and the Lord's supper.
1 Corinthians 11:23-26 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. DO this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. 

We are about to get into the meat and potatoes of the sacraments. And I really want to take my time going through the sacraments as we get many questions concerning, in particular, the practice of infant baptism. I won't say anything that hasn't been said before by others, but hopefully with the blog we can summarize some of main points of baptism and the Lord's supper, helping us to understand them covenantally and within the context of the whole of Scripture. That is because while we believe that baptism and the Lord's supper are New Testament sacraments, they do not exist within a bubble of New Testament theology. The sacraments, just like all of New Testament theology, builds off of what came before it. The Old Testament is the foundation and lays the groundwork to help us understand all that is revealed in the New Testament.

But to begin, what is, exactly, a sacrament? First, we see that a sacrament is something that was ordained by Christ himself. We know that before our Lord ascended into heaven, he commanded his followers to make disciples by baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We know that on the night that Jesus was betrayed, he gave his disciples the sacrament of the Lord's supper, telling them to "do this in remembrance of me". So these are things that Jesus commanded his people to do. Now, understandably, some Christian traditions, even Protestant traditions, add more sacraments. Feet washing is a common one, as Christ says that his disciples should do "just as I have done for you" (Jn. 13:15). But unlike the sacraments of the Lord's supper and baptism, none of the New Testament authors spend time writing about the theological significance of foot washing, there are no New Testament instructions or regulations laid out as to how foot washing is to be administered, and, we see no evidence that the churches in the book of Acts were carrying out foot washing ceremonies. This has led many to believe that washing feet was not a sacrament instituted by Christ, but rather, that Jesus is commanding his followers to humble themselves and serve each other.  And, if Christ's words in John 13:15 apply to the act of serving one another, then, unlike with the actual act of foot washing, we see plenty of evidence in the New Testament that the followers of Christ took up his command. The book of Acts is filled with examples of Christ's disciples serving one another, and the epistles are full of instruction and commands as to how we should carry out our service to the people of God.

We also see that the sacraments are "sensible signs". This means that the sacraments engage our outward senses. For the most part, Christian worship is an audible exercise. We hear and speak the prayers, the confessions, the sermon, the music, and so on. But in the sacraments, we get to engage all of our senses! We feel the waters of baptism and see it being poured over the recipients. We touch the wafer and cup as we hold it in our hands. We can smell the wine as we draw the cup to our lips. We can taste the elements as we partake. We see the table laid out before us and see our brothers and sisters in Christ participating in one meal as one body in Christ. We hear the words of institution and the promises of the covenant given to us. The gospel becomes a tangible, physical thing right there in the midst of our gathered worship service as we faithfully participate in the sacraments. No wonder the worship of Christ's Church has traditionally been a service of "Word and Sacrament"! The sacraments are living pictures of what Christ has done for his people and continues to do for his people as he serves as our "Minister in the high places". 

The catechism also says that the sacraments are signs and seals of the benefits of the New Covenant. What does it mean to say that the sacraments are signs and seals? To say that they're signs is to simply say that the elements of water, wine, and bread represent something. They are symbols of, as the catechism says, "Christ, and the benefits of the New Covenant". They are visible things that point to an invisible reality. But what about "seals"? How are the sacraments acting as a seal? This can be a little more complicated to understand, but I think a simple way to understand it is by saying that the sacraments act as a seal of confirmation of the benefits of the New Covenant as they are received in faith. Just like a seal or notary stamp confirms a legal document such as a deed or a bond, as it confirms legitimacy and ownership, so too do the sacraments confirm the reality of the New Covenant and the fact that we are under the "ownership" of the eternal, holy, and Triune God. But again, this is only true for those who receive the sacraments in faith. And to receive the sacraments in faith means that we receive them with a full dependency upon the invisible reality to which the sacraments point. But we'll discuss that point in much further detail as we examine each of the sacraments in the coming days.

This blog was written by Andy Styer