Does the Westminster Confession Teach Baptismal Regeneration? (Part 2)

by on August 31, 2026 | Comment

The Interpretation

In order to interpret the text of the Scots Confession and the Westminster Confession we must decide on a hermeneutic, a way of interpreting confessional texts. Often in the interpretation of confessional documents the temptation is to try to interpret a specific passage without reference to the broader context, but that is no way to read a text.

In this case, the broader context is the characterization and definition of sacraments in general. Once we understand how the document itself understands sacraments generally, we will be better able to understand what they say about sacraments in particular—for example, baptism and its relation to regeneration.

Scots Confession Article 21

One of the accusations made against the Reformed is reflected in the language of Scots Confession article 21: “And thus we utterly damn the vanity of those that affirm sacraments to be nothing else but naked and bare signs (Rom 8).”1

The adoption by Parliament of the Scots Confession on August 17, 1560 was a significant step in the early days of the Reformation of Scotland.2 It also formed an important part of the background of the Westminster Confession, at least among the Scottish delegates, since the Scots Confession was the confession of the Scottish Kirk for 87 years.

In chapter 21 of the Scots Confession the “six Johns”—that is, “John Knox (ca. 1514–1572), John Winram (ca. 1492–1582), John Spottiswoode (1510–1585), John Willock (d. 1585), John Douglas (ca. 1494–1574), and John Row (ca. 1525–1580)”—began their treatment of the sacraments in the types and shadows:3

As the fathers under the Law (besides the verity of the sacrifices) had two chief sacraments, to wit, circumcision and the Passover, the despisers and contemners whereof were not reputed for God’s people (Gen. 17), so we do acknowledge and confess that we now in the time of the gospel have two sacraments only, instituted by the Lord Jesus and commanded to be used of all those that will be reputed members of His body (Matt 26, 28), to wit, baptism and the Supper or table of the Lord Jesus called the communion of His body and blood.4

We should notice one of first concerns of the article: those who “contemn” the sacraments.5 The Kirk was responding to the Roman Catholic charge that the Protestants despised the holy sacraments.

The Reformed were not contemptuous of the sacraments that Christ had instituted, but they did reject the five ecclesiastical sacraments instituted by Rome in the thirteenth century. The Reformed in Scotland wanted the world to know that they were not radicals. They agreed that those who treated with contempt dominical sacraments (those instituted by Christ) were not to be regarded as Christians.

The sacraments are not bare signs. They do several things. They signal a distinction between those who are a part of the covenant people and those who are outside the external administration of the covenant of grace.6 They also “exercise [strengthen] the faith of His Children and participation of the same sacraments” and “seal in their hearts the assurance of his promises and of that most blessed conjunction, union and society which the elect have with their head, Christ Jesus.”7

The Scots’ categorical rejection of “the vanity of those who affirm sacraments to be nothing else but naked and bare signs (Rom 8)” gets to the nub of the issue. The Roman Catholic and Lutheran critics of the Reformed churches accused the Reformed of making the sacraments nothing but signs. Whether that was ever true of Zwingli himself is a matter of debate, but Zwingli and his followers had been described by Lutherans as “sacramentarians” for most of four decades by the time the Scots Confession was published. The adjective sacramentarian was intentionally pejorative. It signaled that Zürichers understood holy communion to be nothing more than an oath by the believer of his loyalty to Christ.8 In Luther’s ears this made the Lord’s Supper just another law whereas, properly understood, it was a gospel sacrament.9 Since 1549 the Lutherans had lumped together all the Reformed as sacramentarians, even though by 1560 Heinrich Bullinger, Peter Martyr Vermigli, John Calvin, Theodore Beza, and John Knox, among others, had long ago rejected a sacramentarian view of the Lord’s Supper.

In the Scots Confession, baptism is not a mere sign. Rather, by it “we are engrafted in Christ Jesus to be made partakers of his justice by which our sins are covered and remitted (1 Cor 10).”10 The Scots wrote the sacraments are “to be used of all those that will be reputed members of his body.”11 They are the outward mark of belonging to the covenant of grace. They are the sign of what is true of those who believe what they signify. Baptism seals in the elect the promises (e.g., free grace) and the things signified (e.g., justification), which have been received by faith alone. The sacraments are indeed not mere, naked signs but it is also true that the engrafting of which the Scots Confession speaks is sacramental in nature. Thus, they confessed, “in the Supper rightly used, Christ Jesus is so joined with us (John 6) that He becomes the very nourishment and food of our souls.”12 The Scots did not repudiate the Roman Catholic doctrine of the sacraments only to stumble into it again in 1560. Hence the qualifying clause “rightly used,” may not be ignored. Who uses the sacraments rightly? Believers. How do believers receive Christ and his benefits? By faith alone. In the Supper, to those who believe, Christ “becomes the very nourishment and food of our souls.” This is the very same doctrine that Guy de Bres would publish the next year in Belgic Confession article 35. Thus, the Scots repudiated transubstantiation (i.e., the doctrine that, at consecration, the bread and wine become the literal body and blood of Christ). The Reformed agreed with Rome that believers are fed by the body and blood of Christ, but they rejected the novelty proposed by Paschasius Radbertus (c. 790–c. 860) and adopted by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. Instead, with Calvin and Beza, the Scots Confession confesses the “right use of the sacraments is wrought by the operation of the Holy Ghost, who by true faith carried above all things that are visible, carnal, and earthly, and makes us to feed upon the body and blood of Christ Jesus which was once broken and shed for us which is now in heaven (Heb 6, 10).”13

The Scots had a high view of the holy sacraments, but they did not confuse the sacraments for that which they signify. It is through faith that we receive the benefits of Christ. It is by the mysterious operation of the Spirit that we are fed on the body and blood of Christ. The natural, glorified, true humanity of Lord is not ubiquitous (everywhere). It is local, at the right hand of the Father.

Yet we most assuredly believe that the bread that we break is the communion of Christ’s body (1 Cor 10), and the cup which we bless is the communion of His blood. So that we confess and undoubtedly believe that the faithful, in the right use of the Lord’s table do so eat the body and drink the blood of the Lord Jesus (John 6).14

This became classical Reformed sacramental language. The water of baptism does not literally become the washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5) any more than the elements of holy communion literally become the body and blood of Christ. Sacramentally, however, water, bread, and wine are what they signify. The union (“conjunction”) between the sign and things signified is mysterious. It is supernatural.

The Scots understood that believers who receive the sacraments “oppressed by negligence and manly [human] infirmity do not profit so much as they would in the very instant action of the Supper, yet will it after bring forth fruit as lively seed sown in good ground.”15 The sacraments are efficacious because the Holy Spirit operates through them, because the Spirit “will not frustrate the faithful of the fruit of that mystical action” because “all this we say comes by true faith which apprehends Christ Jesus who only makes His sacrament effectual unto us.”16

The Scots end the article where they began: It is slander for anyone to say that the Reformed confess the sacraments to be “only naked and bare signs.”17 “This liberally and frankly we must confess, that we make a distinction betwixt [between] Christ Jesus in His natural substance and betwixt the elements in the sacramental signs.”18 This distinction between sacramental sign and thing signified is precisely why the Reformed “neither worship the signs in place of that which is signified by them, neither yet do we despise and interpret them as unprofitable and vain.”19 The Scots were neither Roman nor radical in their theology of the sacraments.

When, at the beginning of the article, we read “by baptism we are engrafted” we are not entitled to understand that clause apart from or as contradicting the last part of the same article. Baptism is a sacrament, and in the nature of sacraments there is a distinction between the sacrament and the thing signified. The baptismal engrafting that occurs is sacramental not magical.

Next time we will return our attention to the Westminster Confession.

Notes

  1. James T. Dennison Jr., ed., Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries in English Translation: 1523–1693 (Reformation Heritage Books, 2008–14), 2:201.
  2. Dennison Jr., ed. Reformed Confessions, 2.187.
  3. Dennison Jr., Reformed Confessions, 2.186.
  4. Dennison Jr., ed. Reformed Confessions, 2.201.
  5. “verb [with object] archaic treat or regard with contempt” Oxford Dictionary of English (Oxford University Press, 2010), s.v., “contemn.”
  6. “without his league;” Dennison Jr., ed. Reformed Confessions, 2.201.
  7. Dennison Jr., ed. Reformed Confessions, 2.201. Emphasis added.
  8. Zwingli and others had explained the etymology of sacramentum as a military oath.
  9. For an extensive discussion of the history of the Reformed doctrine of the sacraments listen to the Heidelcast series, “To Nourish and Sustain.”
  10. Dennison Jr., ed. Reformed Confessions, 2.201.
  11. Dennison Jr., ed. Reformed Confessions, 2.201.
  12. Dennison Jr., ed. Reformed Confessions, 2.201. Emphasis added.
  13. Dennison Jr., ed. Reformed Confessions, 2.201. Emphasis added.
  14. Dennison Jr., Reformed Confessions, 2.202.
  15. Dennison Jr., Reformed Confessions, 2.202.
  16. Dennison Jr., Reformed Confessions, 2.202.
  17. Dennison Jr., Reformed Confessions, 2.202.
  18. Dennison Jr., Reformed Confessions, 202.
  19. Dennison Jr., Reformed Confessions, 202.

©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.

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    Post authored by:

  • R. Scott Clark
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    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 is professor emeritus of church history and historical theology at Westminster Seminary California, where he taught for 29 years. He also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007 and the Heidelcast since 2009.

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