Matt Yonke, the young man who posted a blog piece on how the FV affected him in a Rome-ward direction, has posted a follow-up question on baptism. Someone else has reasonably asked for a contrasting response from an FV person. So this post is my response to Matt. His question is here:
“Here is an invitation, without guile, for FV proponents great and small to explain their beliefs against my misconceptions. A logical place to start seems to be baptism. I believe, as a Catholic, that at the moment of baptism in the Triune name with the intention of doing what the Church does, the sins of the recipient, from the stain of original sin all the way down to the last lustful glance at a woman the recipient took before being baptized, are really and truly forgiven him. He is made Holy and put into a state of grace, a state of favor before God the Father, on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ. He is also grafted into the Mystical Body of Christ, the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.”
As a friend of Matt’s pointed out on his blog, this is an individualistic approach to the question. What is happening in the individual, any individual, who is being baptized? The FV begins with a corporate understanding of the meaning and import of baptism — union with Christ, forgiveness of sin, and so on. The decretal status of the one being baptized is not one of the things that baptism signifies, and whether or not the baptized individual is truly justified and saved is dependent upon the presence or absence of evangelical faith somewhere in the course of his life.
So let me make plain what we don’t believe, over against this Roman Catholic expression, with maybe a few questions thrown in. After that a couple brief statements of what I do believe.
I believe, as a Catholic, that at the moment of baptism in the Triune name with the intention of doing what the Church does, the sins of the recipient, from the stain of original sin all the way down to the last lustful glance at a woman the recipient took before being baptized, are really and truly forgiven him.
This is not correct
. And by starting with what “must happen” to each and every baptized individual this way, a host of counter-examples cluster around. “Forgiven” is not in the first place a theological category; it is a blessing of the covenant that forgiven people actually experience. Over the course of my ministry, I have had many more people come to our church from Rome than have gone over to Rome. And overwhelmingly, the thing that made these people Protestant was a conversion, forgiveness, cleansing, experienced grace. The theolgians of Rome talk a good game, but in the average parish there is an awful lot of guilt. And I am not talking about the guilt of the secret hypocrite, which every church must deal with, but rather the standard guilt of the pious and devout. People frequently become Protestants in a conversion experience of moral relief. There are many baptized individuals, sons of Belial, who are unforgiven, period, and this would include original sin, along with all the sins they had committed because of that original sin. Their baptism didn’t fix them at all, but rather made their condition worse.
He is made Holy
Then why are so many unholy?
and put into a state of grace
And why so many without grace?
a state of favor before God the Father,
Why so many who feel guilty constantly?
on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ. He is also grafted into the Mystical Body of Christ, the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
Just curious on this one — does this mean that all baptized Protestants are really grafted-in members of the Catholic Church? If not, then why are they not really baptized when they convert to Rome? If so, then why do they need to go to Rome?
All that said, let me state what I believe about baptism, and allow me to do it two ways. First, from the Joint Federal Vision Statement:
We affirm
that God formally unites a person to Christ and to His covenant people through baptism into the triune Name, and that this baptism obligates such a one to lifelong covenant loyalty to the triune God, each baptized person repenting of his sins and trusting in Christ alone for his salvation. Baptism formally engrafts a person into the Church, which means that baptism is into the Regeneration, that time when the Son of Man sits up His glorious throne (Matt. 19:28).
We deny
that baptism automatically guarantees that the baptized will share in the eschatological Church. We deny the common misunderstanding of baptismal regeneration — i.e. that an ‘effectual call’ rebirth is automatically wrought in the one baptized. Baptism apart from a growing and living faith is not saving, but rather damning. But we deny that trusting God’s promise through baptism elevates baptism to a human work. God gives baptism as assurance of His grace to us personally, as our names are spoken when we are baptized.
Sounds pretty tame, actually, from an evangelical Protestant standpoint. Please note that this FV statement on baptism is in flat contradiction to the Catholic statement that Matt gave.
But if you want a stronger, more sacramental, more robust statement, one which I also hold, I would comply by saying:
Baptism is an effectual means of salvation to worthy receivers, that is, to those with true, God-given faith. This baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible Church; but also to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in the newness of life. This sacrament is, by Christ’s own appointment, to be continued in His Church until the end of the world.
Although it is a great sin to condemn or neglect this ordinance, yet grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto it, as that no person can be regenerated, or saved, without it: or, that all that are baptized are undoubtedly regenerated. That’s the way it usually goes, but not always and not necessarily.
The efficacy of Baptism is not tied to that moment of time when it is administered. Neverthless, by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Spirit, to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongs to, according to the counsel of God’s own will, in His appointed time.
There, I finally said it. Somebody needs to bring charges.