Under the types and shadows of the Old Testament, before the death of Christ, circumcision was the sign of God’s covenant promise to be a God to believers and to their children. That bloody sign and seal has been replaced by a watery sign and seal. As a sign, it testifies to all that God has done for those who believe: He has granted them new life, true faith, and through faith righteousness before God. Like circumcision, baptism is also sign of God’s promise to be God not only to believers but also to their children.

As a seal, baptism is a guarantee of the genuineness of God’s promises to believers and to their children. As a sacrament, baptism, like Holy Communion, is a promise that just as water washes away dirt, so the Holy Spirit has washed away my sins.¹ It certifies to believers that they have been granted new life, that they are clean before God, and that he has united them to Christ.²

We baptize the children of believers not out of sentiment or because baptism magically confers new life or justification. Rather, we accept God’s promise that he has covenanted to be the God of believers and their children, and we understand that just as under the types and shadows he commanded circumcision to be applied to the children of believers, so now every command to baptize includes believers and their children. We search the Scriptures and we find nowhere in the New Testament where the Abrahamic promise has been revoked. Indeed, Paul explained it this way: “That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all” (Rom 4:16).

Let me be perfectly clear. Only believers receive Christ and his promises, but by God’s ordination, his elect come to new life and true faith through the use of the means of grace, the preaching of the good news, and their faith is strengthened through the use of the holy sacraments. So rather than waiting for our children to show signs of faith before we baptize them, we follow the Abrahamic pattern instituted by God of baptizing believing parents and their children. We also pray for them, nurture them, instruct them, and include them in the public worship services. All these things are acts of faith, hope, and love. We trust God’s promise to be a God to us and to our children. We baptize them in hope—that is, in expectation that in God’s good time, he will bring our children to new life and true faith. He may do it in the act of baptism, but we have no promise that it will necessarily be so. Sometimes, in the providence of God, the children of believers may wait some years before coming to faith. Just as often, however, our children never a remember a day when they did not believe. God the Spirit worked in their little hearts and minds quietly and wonderfully to bring them to new life and true faith.

In Holy Communion we recognize that what was promised in baptism is true of the one who comes to the table. Where baptism is the sign and seal of initiation in the faith, Communion is the sign and seal of renewal of the covenant of grace, of a personal appropriation of the promises of the covenant. At profession of faith the believer has said to the church, “I believe the promise for myself,” and perhaps more importantly, in Communion the Lord says to those who have professed faith, “This is the new covenant in my blood,” and “This is my body”; this is to say, “It really is true. I love you so much that I laid down my life for you, and I have made you flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone, and I am feeding your soul through the mouth of faith with my body and blood.”

As a sign, Communion, the Holy Supper, tells us that just as we see the bread and wine and taste them, so surely has Christ died for us.³ The Supper certifies to us that as we taste the bread and wine, so surely are we, by grace alone through faith alone, being more and more united to Christ by his Holy Spirit.⁴ This is what Jesus meant when he said, “Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you,” and “This is the new covenant in my blood.”

To say “new covenant in my blood” is to say, “Just as I promised to Abraham when I passed through the pieces (see Gen 15:17), so my body was broken and my blood shed for you.” As we taste the bread and wine, we know that we who believe really are forgiven and accepted with God forever. The bread and wine are his body and blood sacramentally. His literal body is at the right hand of the Father, but by his Holy Spirit he feeds us on his body and blood through faith.⁵ We confess that, in the Holy Supper, we are reminded that all of Christ’s “sufferings and obedience are as certainly our own, as if we ourselves had suffered and done all in our own person.”⁶

In distinction from the Roman Communion, we understand that the Supper reminds us of Christ’s once-for-all death for us, but it is not a continuation of it. He turned away the wrath of God for us once for all on the cross (Rom 3:25; Heb 7:27; 9:26; 10:10; Heb 2:17; 1 John 4:10). Our ministers are not priests, and the elements are not magic. After consecration, the bread and wine remain bread and wine but are sacramentally the body and blood of Christ.

In some traditions, infants are brought to the holy table. This is not the practice of the Reformed churches. We confess that believers—those who know the greatness of their sin and misery outside of Christ, who have trusted in him, and who know that their “remaining infirmity is covered by the suffering and death of Christ; who also desire more and more to strengthen their faith and to amend their life”—are to come to the table. Those who only pretend to believe should not come to the table because the apostle Paul says that they eat and drink judgment to themselves (1 Cor 10:19–22).⁷

The sacraments, the signs and seals of the covenant of grace, are Christ’s gifts to his church. They are visible manifestations of the good news. They are things that we receive from Christ. Baptism is a testimony of what God has done for us in Christ, not a testimony of what we have done for God. The Lord’s Supper is a feast, not a funeral that we must endure each week.

Like prayer and the preaching of the gospel, the sacraments are essential parts of the Christian life. When we are tempted, we remember we have been baptized—that is, identified with Christ—that we belong to Christ, that we are not our own but have been bought with a price (1 Cor 6:20). When we wonder whether we really are saved, we remember our baptism—that by grace alone through faith alone we have already passed through the Red Sea of judgment (1 Cor 10:1–4; Jude 5) and are safe in Christ, the ark.

In baptism we remember what the Lord has already done for us. In the Lord’s Supper, we “do this in remembrance” (Luke 22:19) of Christ’s suffering and death, but we also rejoice in the reality that just as we are eating the elements with our mouths, we are being truly strengthened by Christ’s body and blood. The sacraments are not magic, but they are not empty signs. They are sacraments through which the Spirit operates to confirm his promises and strengthen us day by day.

Notes

1. See Heidelberg Catechism 69.
2. See Heidelberg Catechism 70.
3. See Heidelberg Catechism 75.
4. See Heidelberg Catechism 76.
5. See Belgic Confession, art. 35.
6. See Belgic Confession, art. 35.
7. See Heidelberg Catechism 81 and 82.

©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.

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Post authored by:

• R. Scott Clark

  

  R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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