Attempts to reconcile Sola Fide with baptismal regeneration
are
unsuccessful because we have no right to give to either regeneration or faith
any meaning less than their full-biblical meaning. Therefore if a sinner is
justified by God through faith alone, he is not regenerate through baptism
without faith. John Stott, “The Evangelical Doctrine of Baptism,” (in The
Anglican Evangelical Doctrine of Infant Baptism, ed. John Stott and J. Alec
Motyer [London: The Latimer Trust, 2008], 14)
And yet . . .
The
Bare Token view.
I
think I can dismiss this view in a sentence or two. If baptism were a mere sign,
which in no sense or circumstance whatever conveyed anything to its recipients,
the apostles could never have used expressions which ascribe some effect to
baptism, like ‘repent and be baptized for the remission of sins’ (Acts 2:38),
or ‘as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ’ (Galatians
3:27), or ‘baptism now saves you’ (1 Peter 3:21). (Ibid., 15)
