In
a previous post, I discussed both historical and modern Reformed
theologians' inconsistency on the salvific nature of water baptism. While
re-reading the Institutes of the
Christian Religion, I have encountered a number of places where Calvin
explicitly teaches baptismal regeneration, notwithstanding elsewhere in his
writings holding a purely symbolic view of water baptism. Note the following
from book 4 chapter 17 paragraph 1:
After God has once received us into
his family, it is not that he may regard us in the light of servants, but of
sons, performing the part of a kind and anxious parent, and providing for our
maintenance during the whole course of our lives. And, not contented with this,
he has been pleased by a pledge to assure us of his continued liberality. To
this end, he has given another sacrament to his Church by the hand of his
only-begotten Son--viz. a spiritual feast, at which Christ testifies that he
himself is living bread (John 6:51), on which our souls feed, for a true and
blessed immortality. Now, as the knowledge of this great mystery is most
necessary, and, in proportion to its importance, demands an accurate
exposition, and Satan, in order to deprive the Church of this inestimable
treasure, long ago introduced, first, mists, and then darkness, to obscure its
light, and stirred up strife and contention to alienate the minds of the simple
from a relish for this sacred food, and in our age, also, has tried the same
artifice, I will proceed, after giving a simple summary adapted to the capacity
of the ignorant, to explain those difficulties by which Satan has tried to
ensnare the world. First, then, the signs are bread and wine, which represent
the invisible food which we receive from the body and blood of Christ. For as God, regenerating us in baptism, ingrafts us into the
fellowship of his Church, and makes us his by adoption, so we have said
that he performs the office of a provident parent, in continually supplying the
food by which he may sustain and preserve us in the life to which he has
begotten us by his word. Moreover, Christ is the only food of our soul, and,
therefore, our heavenly Father invites us to him, that, refreshed by communion
with him, we may ever and anon gather new vigour until we reach the heavenly
immortality. But as this mystery of the secret union of Christ with believers
is incomprehensible by nature, he exhibits its figure and image in visible
signs adapted to our capacity, nay, by giving, as it were, earnests and badges,
he makes it as certain to us as if it were seen by the eye; the familiarity of
the similitude giving it access to minds however dull, and showing that souls
are fed by Christ just as the corporeal life is sustained by bread and wine. We
now, therefore, understand the end which this mystical benediction has in
view--viz. to assure us that the body of Christ was once sacrificed for us, so
that we may now eat it, and, eating, feel within ourselves the efficacy of that
one sacrifice,--that his blood was once shed for us so as to be our perpetual
drink. This is the force of the promise which is added, "Take, eat; this
is my body, which is broken for you" (Mt. 26:26, &c.). The body which
was once offered for our salvation we are enjoined to take and eat, that, while
we see ourselves made partakers of it, we may safely conclude that the virtue
of that death will be efficacious in us. Hence he terms the cup the covenant in
his blood. For the covenant which he once sanctioned by his blood he in a
manner renews, or rather continues, in so far as regards the confirmation of
our faith, as often as he stretches forth his sacred blood as drink to us.
Here, the instrumental means of regeneration and adoption is water baptism! Something like this would make many modern Reformed apologists (e.g., James White) groan!
