Union with Christ and Infant Baptism

I'm planning, momentarily, to return to a new series on the imputation of Christ's righteousness, but have been too busy recently to post anything. I did contribute this morning to a discussion about baptism and union with Christ on an email list and I'm reproducing the essence of my comments below.

Water baptism formally marks one's inclusion in the body of Christ. This gets at the heart of what it means to hold to infant baptism. The union with Christ (with accompanying privileges and obligations) which is accessed by faith belongs by covenantal promise to baptized infants. For this reason I urge parents to raise their baptized children as Christians and to summon them, even when they are two, to be prophets, priests and kings!!!

Consider the historic Form for the Baptism of Infants used in continental Reformed churches: "When we are baptized into the Name of the Son, God the Son promises us that He washes us in His blood from all our sins and unites us with Him in His death and resurrection. Thus we are freed from our sins and accounted righteous before God. When we are baptized into the Name of the Holy Spirit, God the Holy Spirit assures us by this sacrament that He will dwell in us and make us living members of Christ, imparting to us what we have in Christ, namely, the cleansing from our sins, etc." Then we pray before the baptism that God will graciously look upon the child and incorporate him by His Holy Spirit into His Son Jesus Christ so that he may be buried with him by baptism into death and raised with him to walk in newness of life.

Every time, it seems, anyone talks about union with Christ through baptism, someone else objects, pointing out that union with Christ is enjoyed only through faith (and not baptism). Answer 20 or 32 of the Heidelberg Catechism is usually appealed to in this connection.

No one disputes that we become members of Christ by faith. What is not always acknowledged, however, is that the privileges and obligations of believers belong, by virtue of covenantal promise, to baptized infants.

I've long been fascinated by the uniqueness of the Greek preposition eis (which means "in" or "into") in certain NT formulations. I once heard Sinclair Ferguson say that, so far as he knows, the Pauline expression "believe into (eis) Christ" is completely unique to the Bible and is not found anywhere in extra-biblical koine or classical Greek literature. What I find fascinating is that this is the same preposition used in the expression "baptism into Christ" as in Galatians 3:28 (lit. trans.): "For as many into Christ were baptized (eis Christon ebaptisthete) were clothed in Christ."

So we believe into Christ and we are baptized into Christ. It might seem like two separate unions, but it's not. The union with Christ which is accessed by faith belongs by covenantal promise to baptized infants. The privileges and obligations of membership in Christ are like oversized garments for these infants. But we, their parents, summon them to grow into them. Those who shirk from their membership in Christ in unrepentance will be cut off from Christ (John 15).

The Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness (1)

Many in confessionally Reformed churches in North America today are preoccupied with debates about the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. What exactly is meant by this phrase to which so many cling as an essential component of Christ's saving work? Eventually I'll be giving my own spin on this doctrine, but before I do I want to set the stage with some background information from church history, beginning with the great Westminster Assembly (mid-17th century). The information which follows is available in Chad B. Van Dixhoorn, Reforming the Reformation: Theological Debate at the Westminster Assembly 1643-1652 (Ph.D. diss: Cambridge University, 2004), 270-344.

What exactly is meant by the phrase “imputation of Christ’s righteousness” was hotly debated at the Westminster Assembly in September, 1643. The commissioners were busy refining Article 11 of the Thirty Nine Articles of the Church of England when a prolonged debate erupted about the active obedience of Christ. It was proposed that the language of the original Article 11, “we are accounted righteous before God, only for the merits of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” be amended to, “we are accounted righteous before God . . . only for our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s sake, his whole obedience and satisfaction being by God imputed unto us.” It’s clear from the Minutes of the Assembly that the language of “whole obedience” was intended to include both the active and passive obedience of Christ.

This proposed amendment provoked opposition from a minority contingent at the Assembly led by the capable Thomas Gataker who wanted the word “whole” struck from Assembly’s formulation because of his conviction that the righteousness associated with Jesus’ death is the only righteousness which avails for sinners in justification. Though the majority of commissioners at the Assembly did not agree with Gataker (or William Twisse and Richard Vines), they did formulate the statement in the Westminster Confession in such a way as to allow for Gataker’s passive righteousness only position. The word “whole” was struck and precise identity of the imputed righteousness of Christ was left undefined. Reflecting on this move, William Barker writes, “The Westminster Divines, in such controversies, sought to be clear and faithful to Scriptural language, yet to allow for shades of difference within a generic Calvinism” (Puritan Profiles: 54 Influential Puritans at the Time When the Westminster Confession of Faith was Written [Geanies House, Scotland: Mentor, 1999], 158).