Baptism in the HC

A FAITH WORTH TEACHING The Heidelberg Catechism’s Enduring Legacy

Edited by Jon D. Payne and Sebastian Heck

REFORMATION HERITAGE BOOKS Grand Rapids, Michigan

A Faith Worth Teaching Š 2013 by Jon D. Payne and Sebastian Heck All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Direct your requests to the publisher at the following address: Reformation Heritage Books 2965 Leonard St. NE Grand Rapids, MI 49525 616-977-0889 / Fax 616-285-3246 orders@heritagebooks.org www.heritagebooks.org Printed in the United States of America 13 14 15 16 17 18/10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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CONTENTS

Editors’ Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Foreword: The Heidelberg Catechism: The Secret of Its Success — Herman J. Selderhuis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Part 1: The History and Background of the Heidelberg Catechism 1. The History and People behind the Heidelberg Catechism — Lyle D. Bierma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. The Heidelberg Catechism in the United States — D. G. Hart . . . . . 16 Part 2: The Heidelberg Catechism and the Means of Grace 3. Holding Firmly to the Heidelberger: The Validity and Relevance of Catechism Preaching — Joel R. Beeke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 4. Preaching the Catechism Today — Joel R. Beeke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 5. “Washed from All My Sins”: The Doctrine of Baptism in the Heidelberg Catechism — Sebastian Heck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 6. “As Certainly as I See and Taste”: The Lord’s Supper and the Heidelberg Catechism — Jon D. Payne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Part 3: Christian Doctrine and the Heidelberg Catechism 7. Gathered, Protected, Preserved: The Church and the Heidelberg Catechism — Michael S. Horton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 8. Grace and Gratitude: Justification and Sanctification in the Heidelberg Catechism — Cornelis P. Venema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 9. The Christology of the Heidelberg Catechism — Mark Jones. . . . . . . 166 10. “Prophet, Doctor Jesus”: The Son of God as “Our High Priest and Teacher” in the Heidelberg Catechism Victor E. d’Assonville . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 11. The Spirit-Filled Catechism: The Heidelberg Catechism and the Holy Spirit — Daniel R. Hyde . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

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Part 4: The Heidelberg Catechism as Catechetical Tool 12. The Heidelberg Catechism among the Reformed Catechisms — W. Robert Godfrey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 13. The Heidelberg Catechism: A Catechetical Tool Willem Verboom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 14. Scholasticism in the Heidelberg Catechism?

Willem van ’t Spijker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 Appendix: Selected English Bibliography on the Heidelberg Catechism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 Editors and Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

CHAPTER 5

“Washed from All My Sins”: The Doctrine of Baptism in the Heidelberg Catechism Sebastian Heck

Typically, discussions of the fierce doctrinal battles raging in the German region of the Palatinate in the 1560s focus on the skirmishes over the Eucharist that took place in Heidelberg, and they seldom include a consideration of any controversies over the meaning and right administration of baptism. We would be mistaken, however, to think that there were no polemics or deep theological reflections surrounding the doctrine and practice of baptism during this period.

Unfortunately, the theology of the sacraments as it finds expression in the Heidelberg Catechism (HC) is often treated with minimal or no reference to the historical context in which it was conceived. The result is often a truncated view with little or no connection to the actual sacramental practice that could be experienced, for example, on many a Lord’s Day in St. Peter’s (Peterskirche) or the Church of the Holy Ghost (Heiliggeistkirche) in the late 1560s. Even today, many churches claim to be Reformed in their views of the sacraments and in agreement with the HC, but their practices sometimes bear no resemblance to what one would have witnessed in the years immediately before and after the catechism’s publication. Before we look at what the HC has to say about baptism, then, it is necessary to set the stage briefly with a discussion of the historical background of the controversy surrounding baptism and the context of the catechism in the life of the fledgling Reformed church in Germany.

The Historical Context: Confessional Struggles in the Palatinate The Lutheran Reformation, justly famous for the rediscovery of the article by which the church stands or falls—justification by grace alone through faith alone—also rethought and reevaluated, in the light of Holy Scripture alone (sola scriptura), the nature and function of the sacraments within the larger

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ecclesiological and ecclesiastical framework. In the final, inevitable consequence, the Reformation led to a break with the Church of Rome—the only church the people of early sixteenth-century Germany really knew. Therefore, where the true church was and how it was to be distinguished from the false church of the antichrist became the burning questions of the day.

The Augsburg Confession of 1530 defines this true church as “the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered” (art. 7). Echoes of this minimal working definition of the church can be found in nearly all the Reformed confessions of the sixteenth century. Thus, it was no Reformed invention or peculiarity to rethink the ways in which the sacraments were to be “rightly administered.” The Lutheran doctrine of baptism in itself was certainly no crude repristination of the Roman Catholic dogma.

In the wake of the church union movement in nineteenth-century Germany, the thesis that the Palatine form of Reformed theology really was a kind of “Philippism” became popular.1 It was neither quite Lutheran (measured against the Gnesio-Lutherans) nor fully Reformed (measured, for example, against the arguable standard of John Calvin’s Institutes). Rather, it was viewed as a kind of blend owing more to Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560) than to either of the two great Reformers. However, the practical results of the different Reformations, the Lutheran and the Reformed, paint quite a different picture for the milieu that gave rise to the HC. The practical reforms of worship and sacraments in the Palatinate reveal a quickly growing and consolidated sense of confessional identity. Already in 1562, the newly founded Reformed church council of Heidelberg on which Caspar Olevianus (1536–1587) and others served under Frederick III (1515–1576) proposed far-reaching and quite visible liturgical reforms.

With respect to baptism specifically, Walter Hollweg has argued that Frederick wanted to cleanse the baptismal rite from all “non-Protestant aspects.”2 The specter of Rome loomed large, of course, in these proposed changes.

However, Lutheranism was also considered a threat to the pure doctrine of the Bible and to orthodox Christian practice. In an anonymous pamphlet 1. This view was propounded by, among others, liberal theologian Heinrich Heppe (1820–1879) in his Die Dogmatik der evangelisch-reformierten Kirche dargestellt und aus den Quellen belegt (Elberfeld: Friderichs, 1861) and in his Die confessionelle Entwicklung der altprotestantischen Kirche Deutschlands, die altprotestantische Union und die gegenwärtige confessionelle Lage und Aufgabe des deutschen Protestantismus (Marburg: Elwert, 1854).

2. Walter Hollweg, Neue Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Lehre des Heidelberger Katechismus (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1961), 186.

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titled “Some Articles Which the Zwinglians in the Palatinate Decided and Perpetrated in their Synod” (1562), we read that the Reformed rejected all Lutheran baptismal formulae.3 In particular, following the initiative of Otto Henry (r. 1556–1559), the Reformed were adamant about ridding the administration of baptism from such Romanizing elements as the abrenunciation of the devil and the godparents’ public agreement with the Apostles’ Creed and assent to the baptism. The Reformed in the Palatinate were quite concerned with purging baptism of the remnants of exorcism that remained part of the Lutheran formula: “Depart, you unclean spirit!” Again, while the Lutherans at the time continued freely to use the baptismal fonts inherited from the Catholics, the Reformed were quite conscientious about this. John Calvin (1509–1564) expressed some indecision toward the fonts, even arguing for their continued use in Protestant churches where that was already common practice. Not much later, however, the Genevans called other Reformed churches that continued to use the old ornate stone fonts lapidarii—“the stony ones.” Thus, it was quite likely that under the influence of Geneva-trained Olevianus the council decided to remove the old baptismal fonts from the Reformed churches. In any case, we know from his letters that Frederick saw a good measure of popular “superstition and sorcery” connected with them, as they were still considered consecrated baptismals (baptisteria consecrata) by many and often bore images of Christ or the saints on them. He wrote to his son-in-law, Johann Friedrich of Saxony (1529–1595), that we are not commanded by the Word of God “to baptize in coffins of stone, but with water, be it moving or not; certainly none of the Apostles or Jesus Christ were baptized in a stony coffin.”4 As the Heidelberg polemicizes in question 94 “that, on peril of my soul’s salvation, I avoid and flee all idolatry, sorcery, [and] enchantments,” we may well conclude that the “idolatry” and “sorcery” in this list had in mind the baptismal fonts.5 Thus, they were generally replaced by plain, cheap tin basins. This liturgical innovation, like others (e.g., the fractio panis, the breaking of the loaf of bread in the liturgy of the Lord’s Supper),6 served the dual 3. “Ettliche Artickell So die Zwinglianer in der Pfalz in irem Synodo berathschlagt und angerichtet haben,” dated 1562, in Zur Urgeschichte des Heidelberger Katechismus, Theologische Studien und Kritiken XL, by Albrecht Wolters (Gotha: Perthes, 1867), 15–18.

4. Quoted in Hollweg, Neue Untersuchungen, 189.

5. The Heidelberg Catechism, in “Doctrinal Standards,” in The Psalter Hymnal (Grand Rapids: Board of Publications of the Christian Reformed Church, 1976), 26. All citations of the HC in this essay are from this source.

6. Lyle Bierma, The Doctrine of the Sacraments in the Heidelberg Catechism: Melanchthonian, Calvinist, or Zwinglian?, in Studies in Reformed Theology and History, New Series, no. 4

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motivation of conforming the practices more closely to the Word of God and creating a strong Reformed identity.7 Another example of this Palatinate “further reformation” over against Lutheran baptismal practices was the outlawing of so-called emergency or midwife baptisms. The Lutherans continued this practice, which dated back to at least the eleventh century, viewing it as a legitimate form of baptizing children who were dying in the hospital right after birth. Frederick wasted no time and outlawed this practice for the Reformed church on the basis that our Lord instituted as part of the Great Commission not only the command to baptize but also the agents—the apostles and ministers of the church—who alone are called to perform legitimate baptisms. The emergency baptism, thought Frederick, rests on the misunderstanding of the medieval scholastics, who taught that baptism is strictly necessary for salvation and believed that it was better for someone who was neither ordained by the church nor called by God to perform baptism than for the child not to receive it before his untimely death.8 These and other reforms of the liturgical life of the church were such clear lines in the sand, as it were, that Heppe was probably correct, despite his unionist agenda, when he penned these well-known words: “The Reformation of the Palatinate spread fear and terror across the whole protestant Germany.”9 It did so because it was a force to be reckoned with that understood the necessity of reforming all aspects of church life and doctrine, including purging the liturgy and the sacraments of the last Lutheran vestiges.

(Princeton: Princeton Theological Seminary, 1999):16. Bierma believes the fractio panis is no “Reformed slant,” “not strictly” Reformed, but a “later Zwinglian” practice. Contra Charles D. Gunnoe Jr., Thomas Erastus and the Palatinate: A Renaissance Physician in the Second Reformation (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 101–4; also contra Bodo Nischan, “The ‘Fractio Panis’: A Reformed Communion Practice in Late Reformation Germany,” Church History 53 (1984):17–29.

7. “The Baptismal office is largely Genevan.” Bard Thompson, “The Palatinate Church Order of 1563,” Church History 23, no. 4 (Dec. 1954): 348.

8. A quite moving account from Frederick’s life confirms this understanding. When his daughter Elisabeth, wife of Johann Wilhelm of Saxony, gave birth to a stillborn daughter and was grieved that the child had not received an emergency baptism, Frederick consoled her and her husband: “We parents shall not be so reckless and insinuate that our loving God and father in heaven would not have our children (if they are born to believing parents, even if they have not received the external sacrament and earthly element) be saved and receive them to himself.” August Kluckhohn, ed., Briefe Friedrichs des Frommen, Kurfürsten von der Pfalz (Braunschweig: Schwetschke, 1868), 1:530–33.

9. Heinrich Heppe, Geschichte des deutschen Protestantismus (Marburg: Elwert, 1853), 2:6, as quoted in Hollweg, Neue Untersuchungen, 193.

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The “System of Catechism” The dual importance of baptism, as expressed in the Augsburg Confession, that it is both “necessary to salvation, and that through [it] is offered the grace of God,” led to a strong Lutheran conviction that baptism is a means (medium) by which the grace of God is surely conveyed. In the words of Luther’s Small Catechism: “What does Baptism give or profit? Answer: It works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare.”10 If we were to ask “How can water do such great things?” the Small Catechism answers: “It is not the water indeed that does them, but the word of God which is in and with the water, and faith, which trusts such word of God in the water.”11 According to Lutheran teaching, then, baptism does not work apart from faith but is based on God’s word of promise, which itself creates faith. Children, says the Augsburg Confession, “are to be baptized who, being offered to God through Baptism are received into God’s grace.”12 Thus, baptism stands at the beginning of the Christian life; in fact, it is the beginning of the Christian life, the very medium or instrument by which the forgiveness of sins and regeneration are worked and obtained.

The Reformed, on the other hand, though generally in agreement with the Lutherans that baptism is a means of grace (medium gratiae), refrained from teaching that baptism “works forgiveness of sins”—that it presumes a faith in the child being baptized ( fides infantium). At least they qualified such statements very carefully, generally rejecting the equation of baptism and regeneration.

While this is not the place to compare Lutheran and Reformed views of baptism in detail, I provide this brief comparison in order to draw out an important point even before we approach the actual text of the HC. It is this: for the Lutheran, the baptized child was to be considered for all intents and purposes a regenerate Christian. Catechesis, then, in Lutheranism, was the means to be employed to teach a child about the faith he or she already possessed. For the Reformed, this was not the case. Thus, the place of catechesis became a watershed issue in the latter half of the sixteenth century.

The Reformed religion, from the beginning, was an educational religion—not that the Reformed thought unbelievers simply had to be educated in the faith in order to become Christians. They did not teach that. After 10. Martin Luther, Small Catechism, 4.2.

11. Luther, Small Catechism, 4.3.

12. Augsburg Confession, article 9.

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all, they believed that “true faith is not only a sure knowledge whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in His Word, but also a hearty trust, which the Holy Spirit works in me by the Gospel” (HC 21). Knowledge to be taught intellectually and experiential assurance of the heart always belonged together in the Reformed conception of true, biblical faith. However, the Reformed strongly believed that there are things that are absolutely “necessary for a Christian to believe,” namely, “all that is promised us in the Gospel, which the articles of our catholic, undoubted Christian faith [i.e., the Apostles’ Creed] teach us in summary” (HC 22). These articles needed to be taught not only to the adult converts from the papal church coming to faith under the preaching of the true gospel but also to the children growing up within the fold of the church. Catechesis was part of the warp and woof of the Reformed religion from the beginning. The faith by which we believe ( fides qua) and the faith which is believed ( fides quae) were thought to condition and to require each other for a full-blown biblical faith.

This fact gave the HC a very specific prominent place in the life of the church. It was never intended to be merely a unifying confessional document; neither was it intended to be used merely for a kind of ex post facto catechesis of those who had already become regenerate through baptism. Rather, the strategic, purposeful placement of the HC as part of the constitution of the Reformed church in the Palatinate, placed in the center of the church order13 and bookended, as it were, by the liturgical “Form for the Administration of Baptism” (Form zu tauffen) before and the “Form for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper” (Form das Abendmal zu halten) after, gives us an interpretative grid not to be missed. Catechesis is the pathway from baptism to the Lord’s Table. As Karl Barth (1886–1968) explained so eloquently, the HC is “the integrating part of the liturgy, placed between the formulas for baptism and the Lord’s Supper—on the way, so to speak, between the grace which has already been shown and the grace yet to be shown.”14 Thus, anyone who 13. For the full German text of the Church Order of the Palatinate, see Wilhelm Niesel, ed., Bekenntnisschriften und Kirchenordnungen der nach Gottes Wort reformierten Kirche (Zürich: Zollikon, 1938), 136–218. For the full English text with notes and commentary, see John B. Payne, The Living Theological Heritage of the United Church of Christ, vol. 2, Reformation Roots (Cleveland, Ohio: Pilgrim Press, 1997), 359–76 (document 2). Also John H. A. Bomberger, “The Old Palatinate Liturgy of 1563,” The Mercersburg Review 2 (1850): 81–96, 265–86; John H. A. Bomberger, “The Old Palatinate Liturgy of 1563,” The Mercersburg Review 3 (1851): 97–128. For background cf. Thompson, “Palatinate Church Order,” 339–54.

14. Karl Barth, Die christliche Lehre nach dem Heidelberger Katechismus (Zürich: Zollikon, 1948). English translation: Karl Barth, Learning Jesus Christ through the Heidelberg Catechism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 23.

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would look at the meaning and function of the sacraments according to the HC has to come to terms with this aspect of educational religion. As J. W. Nevin put it, “The Catechism proceeds throughout on this theory of baptismal, educational religion.”15 This system, or “theory of the catechism,”16 has but one design for the children being reared in the faith: “The very thing it designs is to prepare them for an open personal profession of their faith and an approach to the Lord’s Supper at a certain given time.”17 This system finds expression in the entire structure of the church order, which sought to regulate church life and churchly piety in the Palatinate. In it, we read how the system of catechesis conforms to this Reformed, educational view of religion. In the section titled “Of the Catechism,” we read that catechesis is first for “the instruction of the young and the unlearned” in general. But then, the church order continues, “All pious people from the commencement of the Christian Church have been careful to instruct their children in the fear of the Lord, as well at home, as in schools and churches.”18 The rationale for such catechesis is given thus: “They were driven by the express command of God—Ex. chapters 12, 13; Deut. chapters 4, 6 and 11.”19 Next follows the primary, biblical-theological rationale for catechesis of baptized covenant children of the church: Finally, just as the children of the Israelites, after their circumcision, when they reached the years of understanding, were instructed in the mysteries of that sign of the covenant, as well as in the covenant of God itself, so also shall our children receive instructions concerning the baptism they received in infancy, and the true Christian faith and repentance, so that they may make a proper confession of their faith before the whole congregation before they are admitted to the table of the Lord.20

Zacharias Ursinus (1534–1583) also gives a brief synopsis of the system of the catechism in his academic lectures on the HC, edited posthumously, in which he discusses the small children of the church, or the children of Christian parents.

These children, very soon after their birth were baptized, being regarded as members of the church, and after they had grown a little older they 15. John W. Nevin, History and Genius of the Heidelberg Catechism (Chambersburg, Pa.: Publication Office of the German Reformed Church, 1847), 158.

16. Nevin, History and Genius, 157.

17. Nevin, History and Genius, 160.

18. Bomberger, “The Old Palatinate Liturgy,” 90.

19. My translation from the German original.

20. Bomberger, “The Old Palatinate Liturgy,” 90–91.

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Thus, we see the church order, along with the HC, to be the structural outgrowth of the newly discovered covenant theology. In this system, which the HC presupposes throughout, baptism stands at the beginning of the Christian life for the covenant child, and admission to the Lord’s Table (the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper) is the culmination of the educational or covenantal catechism process. Theologically speaking, the Heidelberg envisions baptism as the sign and seal of entry and membership in the covenant of grace, while public confession of faith and consequent partaking of the Lord’s Supper are the confirmation and culmination of the covenantal nurture process and, more importantly, of God’s covenant faithfulness. The baptized child has, as far as we are concerned, by God’s grace, through the instrumentality of catechesis at home, in the schools, and in church, at last become a full participant in the life of the covenant community and a partaker of the benefits of the covenant of grace. Two relatively widespread trends in Reformed churches today—paedocommunion on the one hand, and the practice of admitting children and youth without requiring a full, public profession of faith substantiated and limited by the very content of the catechism on the other—are equally outside the pale and vision of this Reformed system of catechism the HC presupposes.

Baptism in the Context of the Entire Catechism Along with this purposeful placement of the catechism at the heart of the life of the church, sandwiched between the two sacraments, is another context giving meaning to baptism. In order to appreciate the full range of meaning of baptism as it is set forth in the HC, we need to note the overall structure of part 2 of the catechism. Under the well-known macrostructure of the three parts (often titled “misery,” “grace,” and “gratitude”), part 2 (HC 12–85) unfolds the nature of the true faith (HC 21, 23) a Christian needs to confess in order to be justified, i.e., saved (cf. HC 20, 22, 59–61). It does so in a lengthy exposition of “our catholic, undoubted Christian faith,” or the Apostle’s Creed (HC 24–58), culminating in the hinge-question 64, which anticipates the concluding part 3: 21. Zacharias Ursinus, Explicationes Catecheseos Palatinae, in Opera, Tomus I (Heidelberg: Quirinus Reuter, 1612). English translation: G. W. Williard, trans., The Commentary of Dr. Zacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg Catechism (Columbus: Scott & Bascom, 1852), 11.

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“But does not this doctrine make men careless and profane? No, for it is impossible that those who are implanted into Christ by true faith, should not bring forth fruits of thankfulness.”22 In a sense then, the notion of gratitude for God’s grace received already brackets—by way of questions 64 and 86—the section on the sacraments (HC 65–82).23 The question about the origin of this true faith (HC 65) introduces a general section on the nature of the sacraments (HC 65–68), followed by the exposition of baptism (HC 69–74) and the Lord’s Supper (HC 75–82).

The questions about admission to the Lord’s Table (HC 81–82) give rise to reflection on church discipline (HC 82–85). However, as we shall see, these reflections are not only related to the Lord’s Supper but also to baptism, even as they clearly exhibit the system of the catechism. In question 85, those who “do not turn from their errors or evil ways,…are complained of to the Church [or to its proper officers]; and, if they neglect to hear them also, are by them denied the holy sacraments and thereby excluded from the Christian communion, and by God Himself from the kingdom of Christ; and if they promise and show real amendment, they are again received as members of Christ and His Church.” Thus, church discipline includes a barring not only from the Lord’s Table but also from the sacrament of baptism. It is the logical consequence of the theory of catechism; whenever, under the blessing and work of the Spirit, catechizing does not produce the desired result—a full profession of the “catholic, undoubted Christian faith” and thereby a regular partaking of the Lord’s Supper—discipline and excommunication of those previously admitted to the church (by baptism as children) will ultimately occur. This will be explored in greater depth later in this chapter.

Recognizing that “gratitude” (Dankbarkeit) brackets the entire section on the sacraments is crucial. It makes it impossible from the outset to understand the sacraments merely in a Zwinglian sense, as a token of our commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. Rather, the context of the discussion pertaining to the sacraments reveals them as means of grace, as “holy signs and seals appointed 22. In the German original, question 64 actually has “Dankbarkeit” (gratitude), the very word a heading for part 3. Quotes from the German text of the HC are taken from the critical edition of Wilhelm Neuser, Heidelberger Katechismus von 1563, in Reformierte Bekenntnisschriften, vol. 2/2—1562–1569, ed. Andreas Mühling and Peter Opitz (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 2009), 167–212.

23. This does not mean, of course, that the sacraments really belong in part 3 of the HC, as if they belonged to the domain of man’s acts of thankfulness. As true means of grace, they rightfully belong in part 2.

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by God for this end, that by their use He may the more fully declare and seal to us the promise of the Gospel” (HC 66).24 Another way in which baptism appears to be woven into the fabric of the entire catechism is the ecclesiological context, that is, membership in the true church of Christ. Question 74 unequivocally teaches that children of the church “as well as their parents, belong to the covenant and people of God”; therefore “they are also by Baptism, as a sign of the covenant, to be ingrafted into the Christian Church.” This instruction is, of course, part of the exposition of infant baptism. We shall come back to this ecclesiological concern in this chapter’s discussion of infant baptism.

Baptism in the Context of the Sacraments in General Many dogmatic works of the sixteenth century, as well as catechetical works, contain a section with a title similar to De sacramentis in genere (Of the sacraments in general). Therefore, the HC stands in a tradition that treats the sacraments abstractly before explaining the concrete meaning of the two individual sacraments. However, to view questions 65–68 and especially questions 66–67 as preambulary would result in missing the import of the later questions on each sacrament individually.

This section opens with a question about the origin of the true faith that questions 22–58 expounded. If everything in the Christian life turns on the nature and content of true faith, then it is crucial (and only logical) that we ask, “Where does this faith come from?” (HC 65). The first time, then, that the HC mentions baptism is implicitly in the answer that follows. “The Holy Spirit works faith in our hearts by the preaching of the Holy Gospel, and confirms it by the use of the holy sacraments.” Here, baptism is subsumed under the notion of sacrament. The unifying thought of question 65, in both creating faith and confirming it, in preaching and in the sacraments, is the work of the Holy Spirit. He works faith in our hearts and confirms it. Both word and sacrament are means and instruments in His hand. Ursinus does not separate between the preaching act, through which the Holy Spirit begets faith, and the sacraments, by which He confirms it, but he can apply one to the other.25 The “more” of the sacraments consists in their functioning 24. For a treatment of the threefold office of Christ, particularly the prophetic office, with respect to the sacraments (e.g., in questions 65 and 66), cf. chapter 10, “‘Prophet, Doctor Jesus’—The Son of God as ‘Our High Priest and Teacher’ according to the Heidelberg Catechism,” by Victor E. d’Assonville.

25. Ursinus, Commentary, 343.

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like seals on a charter.26 Along with preaching, then, the sacraments are true means of the grace of the gospel, whether administered upon a profession of faith, as with adult converts under the preaching of the gospel, or unto a profession of faith, as with baptized children of the church.27 The Definition of a Sacrament Next, in question 66, the HC turns to the definition of the term sacrament, which assumes a basic covenant theology: “The sacraments are visible holy signs and seals appointed by God for this end, that by their use He may the more fully declare and seal to us the promise of the Gospel.” The primary proof text for this statement is Genesis 17:11, the circumcision of Abraham’s descendants as a sign of the covenant, a sign and seal of the righteousness by faith (cf. Romans 4:11, which is also a proof text). In the Catechesis Minor (CM),28 an important precursor to the HC, Ursinus assumes faith in his definition of a sacrament: “They are ceremonies instituted by God so that by these visible pledges and public testimonies, as it were, he might remind and assure all believers of the grace promised them in the gospel” (HC 54).29 This aspect is lacking entirely in the definition given in question 66.30 In the second of his Theses, Ursinus makes the underlying covenant theology explicit: Sacraments are, therefore, the signs of the everlasting covenant between God and the faithful; that is, they are rites which God has instituted, and which he commands to be observed in the church, being added to the promise of grace, in order that he may thus, as it were by visible and certain signs, declare and testify that he communicates Christ and all his benefits to those who use these symbols by a true faith, according to the promise of the gospel, and that he may also in this way confirm their faith in the divine promise. 31 26. Ursinus, Commentary, 344.

27. Cf. also Ursinus, Commentary, 355–56 (particularly theses 15 and 16).

28. An English translation of the CM can be found in Lyle D. Bierma et al., An Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism. Sources, History, and Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 141–62, in which it is called the Smaller Catechism.

29. Bierma, Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism, 150 (Latin added).

30. Cf. Wilhelm Neuser, “Die Tauflehre des Heidelberger Katechismus,” in Theologische Existenz Heute. Neue Folge, no. 139 (München: Christian Kaiser, 1967), 11.

31. Ursinus, Commentary, 354. Similarly, Ursinus, Commentary, 344: “Sacraments are rites, or ceremonies instituted by God to the end, that they may be signs of the covenant, or of God’s good will towards us.”

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What may seem a slight change is of utmost importance. No longer can faith simply be assumed, for example, in the sacrament of baptism; rather, the sacraments are signs and seals of the covenant of grace, “being added to the promise of grace” that is the content of preaching. Thus, as we shall see later, infants can be, and in fact must be, included in the sacrament of baptism even as they are already included in the covenant of grace.

This depiction of the sacraments being both “signs” and “seals,” the former “declaring,” the latter “confirming” or “sealing” the promise of the gospel, is only the first instance of a parallelism that will return again in some form all the way down to question 79 (see also questions 67, 69, 73, 75, 79).

It is not too far-fetched, therefore, to see in this parallelism a reflection of the very definition of true faith in question 21 as “not only a sure knowledge whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in His Word, but also a hearty trust.” That this connection is intentional becomes even more likely when we read that this aspect of assurance is something “which the Holy Spirit works in me by the Gospel” (HC 21).

The preaching of the gospel and the sacraments are coordinated in questions 65 and 66 to make the point that word and sign together form the sacrament. Quoting Augustine, Calvin states, “Let the word be added to the element, and it will become a sacrament.”32 The Sacrifice of Christ in the Sacraments After the nature of the sacraments have been defined in general, the relationship and purpose of the means of grace are broached again more fully in question 67.33 The nature of the word preached and the sacraments as means of grace and instruments the Holy Spirit uses to create, confirm, and strengthen faith ties them closely together. 34 Question 67 specifically addresses the tertius comparationis (point of comparison) and the question of the goal of both word and sacrament raised by 32. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: 1960), 4.14.4.

33. Cf. Ursinus, Commentary, 351–52.

34. In his “Thorough Report on the Lord’s Supper” (1590), Ursinus writes “that the holy sacraments as well as the preaching of the Gospel from the mouth have the purpose and were instituted by God to be external means, means to be received by the bodily senses, by which the Holy Spirit reveals to us the will of God towards us and assures us more and more of the same, and makes us partakers of the internal gifts and benefits which we only receive by true faith.” Gründtlicher Bericht Vom H. Abendmal unsers Herrn Jesu Christi, aus eynhelliger Lehre der H. Schrifft, der alten Rechtglaubigen Christlichen Kirchen und auch der Augspurgischen Confession (Neustadt: Harnisch, 1604), 2–3. Translation mine from the German original.

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question 65. The HC says that “the Holy Spirit teaches in the Gospel and assures us by the holy sacraments, that our whole salvation stands in the one sacrifice of Christ made for us on the cross.” The teaching aspect, shorthand for the preaching of the gospel, and the assurance aspect, proper to the sacraments, go together. Neither preaching nor the sacraments are the ground of our salvation; rather, both are exclusively “intended to focus our faith on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross as the only ground of our salvation.”

Thus, the connection between the preaching of the word and the sacraments is not artificial but organic and essential to understanding the HC’s doctrine of the sacraments. In fact, it is essential to understanding how they both, in similar and yet different ways, point our faith to the same gospel and to the same Savior, Jesus Christ.

This twofold aspect of word and sacrament, both pointing to Christ’s sacrifice, is also reflected in the dual meaning of baptism: remission of sins and regeneration, or new life. In question 43 we read, “What further benefit do we receive from the sacrifice and death of Christ on the cross?” The answer mentions the double benefit (duplex gratia) that is later connected with baptism: “That by His power our old man is with Him crucified, slain, and buried; so that the evil lusts of the flesh may no more reign in us, but that we may offer ourselves unto Him a sacrifice of thanksgiving.” It should not come as a surprise to us that two of the proof texts used in question 43 are actually baptism texts: Romans 6:5–11 and Romans 6:12–14.

How Many Sacraments?

It is not incidental or meaningless that the section on the sacraments in general ends on the simple question of the number of sacraments that Christ has instituted (HC 68). What is initially and primarily a pointed polemic against a Roman Catholic (and potentially also Lutheran) multiplication of sacraments consequently becomes shorthand for the system of the catechism that encompasses both the sacrament of initiation (sacramentum initiationis) and the sacrament of nourishment (sacramentum nutritionis) and describes the entire Christian life from birth (baptism) to glory (the Lord’s Supper being the meal that nourishes us unto eternal life). There is no need for further sacraments.

Also, question 68 introduces another parallelism—between baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

The Relationship of Baptism to the Lord’s Supper The parallelism in question 66 between the sacraments as “signs and seals” declaring and sealing the promise of the gospel is not the only one in this

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section. There is also a macrostructure parallelism between baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Beginning with question 69 is a set of six questions on baptism that is consequently mirrored by a set of six questions on the Lord’s Supper.

In each set (HC 69 and 75) is first an explanation as to how the sacrament reminds and assures you (erinnert und versichert)—first parallelism—that you have part in the sacrifice discussed in question 67. Next follows a question about the true, spiritual meaning of each sacrament (HC 70 and 76), then a question each about the institution of each sacrament (HC 71 and 77), about the relationship between the external and the internal or spiritual meaning of the sacrament (HC 72 and 78), and a question about the reason, in biblical language, the spiritual meaning is expressed by the external rite (HC 73 and 79). Finally, in each set is a closing question about a specific topic—the validity of infant baptism (HC 74) and of the popish Mass (HC 80).

Clearly, the parallelism of “declare/remind/signify” and “confirm/ assure/seal” is the recurring refrain in the doctrine of the sacraments. 35 This serves to reinforce what we have already emphasized about the Christian life bracketed between the initiation rite of baptism and the nutritious rite of the Lord’s Supper.

The Heidelberg Catechism’s Doctrine of Baptism The Institution of Baptism The first thing to be said about baptism proper is that water baptism was instituted by Christ Himself. It is no mere human invention or tradition.

The HC assumes this in question 69: “Christ instituted this outward washing with water.” Already in question 66, we learn that a sacrament needs to be “appointed by God.” The actual words of institution are quoted in question 71 from Matthew 28:19. Because baptism is so instituted by Christ, the catechism presents it as a necessary duty of the church to baptize both adult converts and children of believers. Question 74 asks, “Are infants also to be baptized?” And this “also” implies “just as adult converts are to be?” The answer is, of course, yes—they are! Indeed, they must be. Anything else is disobedience to God’s clear command.

Question 71 weaves together a host of Scripture passages in order to prove the biblical foundation of the promise already mentioned in question 69. “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, 35. The term remind is no sign of a latent memorialism in the HC, as some have thought, e.g., Friedrich Winter, “Confessio Augustana und Heidelberger Katechismus in vergleichender Betrachtung” (PhD diss., Universitat Rostock, 1952), 74–76. According to the relevant questions, we do not remind ourselves but rather are reminded by the agency of the Holy Spirit.

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and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 28:19). “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16). This command to the disciples to baptize as part of the Great Commission and the command to all believers in Mark 16 constitutes the “promise.”

“This promise,” the HC explains, “is also repeated, where the Scripture calls baptism the washing of regeneration, and the washing away of sins,” which it does in Titus 3:5: “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.” It does so also in Acts 22:16 with the parallelism there between “be baptized” and “wash away thy sins.”

Wilhelm Neuser rightly points out that the HC knows only one promise (singular) of baptism, which finds expression in different baptism texts. 36 We now turn to this promise.

The Promise of the Gospel in Baptism After drawing attention to Christ’s institution of water baptism, the HC teaches that a promise was attached or added to it (in the Latin edition of 1563: addita hac promissione).37 The most notable feature about baptism, according to the HC, is that it belongs to the category of promise. We have already mentioned the subtle but important differences between the CM, one of the templates of the HC, 38 and the HC itself. While the former presumes faith in most places where it talks about baptism, the HC does not. Instead, the HC introduces a “new” category in the definition of a sacrament, a category missing in the earlier document, namely, the promise (Verheissung [HC 66, 69, 71]). We cannot overestimate the importance of this category to a right understanding of baptism.

Ursinus utilizes this category in commenting on the definition of the sacrament: “Sacraments, therefore, accomplish the same thing which pledges do; for they both signify that something is promised us, and at the same time confirm us in regard to the same thing.”39 That the sacraments carry the same promise as the gospel (HC 67) is a new thought in the HC. It finds no precedent in the CM.40 “Christ instituted this outward washing with water and joined to it this promise, that I am washed with His blood and Spirit from 36. Neuser, “Tauflehre des Heidelberger Katechismus,” 15.

37. Neuser, “Tauflehre des Heidelberger Katechismus,” 12.

38. Almost all 108 of the CM questions are received in the HC; more than half of the text of the HC is straight from the CM. 39. Ursinus, Commentary, 343.

40. However, cf. Calvin, Institutes, 4.14.1: “promise.”

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the pollution of my soul, that is, from all my sins, as certainly as I am washed outwardly with water, whereby commonly the filthiness of the body is taken away” (HC 69). The content of that promise is clear: it is nothing other than the gospel itself, and the entire gospel—the washing “with His blood and Spirit from the pollution of my soul,” or “the remission of sin, and life eternal, for the sake of that one sacrifice of Christ, accomplished on the cross” (HC 67). Baptism serves no subordinate purpose. It is aimed at the very heart of the gospel, the “word of promise.”

Immediately we note that it is not the outward washing with water itself that provides the washing with the blood and Spirit of Christ; rather, it is the promise joined to it. This makes clear from the outset that we are not to think along the lines of an ex opere operatum function of water baptism. Neither are we to think of baptism as a human act, an act of obedience merely. Rather, it is the word of God (promise), sounding forth in Mark 16:16—“shall be saved”—attached to the sign of water baptism that the Holy Spirit uses as an instrument or means (medium) to accomplish His work of full salvation.

How are we to understand the dynamic of that promise? Neuser draws attention to the fact that promise is usually a technical term reserved for Old Testament prophecy. While this is in view in the HC as well, as evidenced by references to Zechariah 13:1 and particularly Ezekiel 36:25–27, the term is used in a much broader sense. It encompasses the joyful expectation and proclamation of present and future grace. The HC, along with other Reformation confessions,41 identifies for all intents and purposes the word of God with the preached gospel (HC 54, 67, 103). The gospel is the preaching of God’s free grace and the promise of His mercy to His people. Neuser opined that the term promise makes the questions on baptism in the HC hard to understand. The gravitational pull is always to a certain extent toward either an ex opere operato understanding like the Roman Catholics or the spiritualism of the Anabaptists. Either baptism by itself works faith, or baptism has no meaning until after one has already made profession of faith. In the former view, the Spirit and the word are tied together, even identified in an absolute sense; in the latter, the Spirit is effectively separated from the word and expected to work immediately, without and apart from ordinary means.

What does the HC teach us here? It teaches that in baptism, the light of the gospel shines brightly when we recognize in this “washing with water” and hear in the promise attached to it “that I am washed with His blood and 41. E.g., the Second Helvetic Confession, chapter 1: “The Preaching of the Word of God Is the Word of God.”

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Spirit from the pollution of my soul, that is, from all my sins, as certainly as I am washed outwardly with water” (HC 69). Those who see no reason to baptize children because they cannot exercise faith, and those who presume faith in children from the time they are baptized each in their own way make no room for the category of divine promise that is the ultimate reason for and meaning of baptism. Baptism neither merely consists of the sign being performed, nor is it merely the thing signified. Ursinus teaches that there is a third element that constitutes baptism. It is that of the seal on a promise.42 The HC consistently presents baptism as a means of proclaiming and extending the promise of the word. Unlike with the CM, in the HC the recipients of baptism are nowhere in view as those who already (necessarily) believe. This holds true even in the light of question 67, where faith is in view and is “directed” to the sacrifice of Christ. We must remember that this is still in the section on the sacraments in general. This reveals what will become clear in the subsequent juxtaposition of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. While baptism is purely promise, even the promise of (future) salvation by faith alone through grace alone, the Lord’s Supper differs from it in that it presumes and requires faith in the recipient, requires that we “embrace with a believing heart,” “trust” (HC 81), and do not show ourselves “unbelieving” by our confession and life (HC 82).

This emphasis on the promissory character of baptism in the HC is crucial when we later turn to the topic of infant baptism. There is complete unanimity in preaching and baptism in that both are unto faith and not on the basis of it. The difference between the two is located, again, in harmony with the Reformation consensus, in the fact that the preached word stands on itself, while water baptism requires the word in order to seal, confirm, and strengthen the faith created by word and Spirit (HC 65).

Washed with Water and with Christ’s Blood and Spirit Question 70 goes on to provide even more substance to this promise: What is it to be washed with the blood and Spirit of Christ?

A: It is to have the forgiveness of sins from God, through grace, for the sake of Christ’s blood, which He shed for us in His sacrifice on the cross.

“Washed with the blood and Spirit of Christ”—this seemingly strange combination occurs in questions 69–71 and in so many words also in questions 72–73.

42. Ursinus, Commentary, 357.

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Is this an appropriate summary of the New Testament teaching on baptism? After all, the expressions “washed [from sins]” and “baptism” occur together explicitly only once in Scripture (Acts 22:16). Baptism and the Holy Spirit are closely related in passages such as Titus 3:5. “Washed with the blood of Christ” is a relatively common New Testament way of summarizing the gospel (Heb. 9:14; 1 John 1:7; Rev. 1:5; 7:14), and “washed” or “cleansed by the Spirit” is as well (1 Cor. 6:11). While the combination “cleansed” with the “Holy Spirit” is the more common language of the New Testament, the HC no doubt chose the more visible form “washed” in order to draw out the parallel with the outward washing with water (HC 69).

In question 70 the HC attributes the power of forgiveness of sins, or justification, to the blood of Christ. We “have the forgiveness of sins from God, through grace, for the sake of Christ’s blood, which He shed for us in His sacrifice on the cross.” Sanctification is the domain of the Holy Spirit— “to be renewed by the Holy Spirit, and sanctified to be members of Christ, so that we may more and more die unto sin and lead holy and unblamable lives,”—and this corresponds to questions 86 and 115. However, in questions 69, 72, and 73, “blood and Spirit” are used together. This must not be read as an inconsistency. The latter questions provide summary statements about the double benefit of justification and sanctification, these being attributed to the blood and the Spirit jointly. Perhaps more importantly, we must take note that question 70 is fashioned in an explicitly Trinitarian structure. God’s grace provides forgiveness “for the sake of Christ’s blood, which He shed for us,” so that we are “renewed by the Holy Spirit and sanctified.”

By their use of proof texts, we also see how the framers of the HC understood the efficacy of the blood of Christ and the work of the Spirit as closely intertwined in the economy of salvation. The relationship between the two provides the link between the past death of Christ (historia salutis) and the present renewal (ordo salutis). Thus, Ezekiel 36:25–27 is offered as proof of the first part of the answer to question 70, even though that passage speaks neither of blood nor of the Savior. The proof texts from Zechariah 13 and Ezekiel 36 are used to establish the centrality of washing as part of the promise of the new covenant.

Acts 1:5 also mentions the Spirit rather than the blood. Only 1 Peter 1:2 explicitly speaks of a “sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” and Hebrews 12:24 of “the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.”

Hebrews 12:24 is of particular interest because it again ties this idea of “washing” together with Ezekiel 36, specifically, by making explicit reference to the new covenant, the church having come to “the mediator of the new covenant.”

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Conversely, the proof texts intended to bolster the second part of the answer to question 70—the work of the Holy Spirit—are often about the shedding of Christ’s blood rather than about the Spirit proper. Romans 6:4 asserts, “We are buried with [Christ] by baptism into death,” and Colossians 2:11–12 uses similar language. First Corinthians 6:11 is sort of a compound text: “Ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (emphasis added).

This should give us pause in treating the proof texts of the HC in a toosterile manner. They are exegetical markers. Only after we have looked at them all and in their individual redemptive-historical context does the exegetical grounding of the entire question and answer come into view.

In summary, we see that the formula “washed with the blood and Spirit of Christ” is indeed a biblically grounded way of speaking about baptism and about the promise of the gospel exhibited in baptism. There is no Trinitarian confusion in the HC when it either individuates (HC 70) or combines (HC 69, 72–73) the work of Christ (His blood) and of the Spirit. It purposefully speaks of the “Spirit of Christ” in all baptism questions with the exception of question 72.

The Sign and the Thing Signified We have noticed that the proof texts used particularly in questions 70 and 71 often do not speak verbatim of water baptism at all but rather of the true, spiritual meaning of it—“the washing with the blood and Spirit of Christ.”

In addition, the HC has included Acts 22:16 as a proof text in question 71, which seems to equate to “be baptized” with “washing away your sins.” One question therefore inevitably and paedagogically follows: “Is, then, the outward washing with water [in baptism] itself the washing away of sins?” (HC 72, emphasis added).

This question asks quite simply but profoundly, “Is the external rite congruent with the internal meaning? Is the sign simultaneous with the thing signified? Does the performance of baptism work the reality exhibited in it?”

This question, together with the proper explanation in question 73, along with the mirror questions 78 and 79 with respect to the Lord’s Supper, makes explicit the semiotic (theory of the signs) presupposition behind the doctrine of the sacraments in the HC. The answer is clearly intended to rule out an ex opere operato understanding of the relationship between sign and thing signified, any confusion or confounding of the sign with the thing itself. Not the sign of water baptism,

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but “only the blood of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit cleanse us from all sin” (HC 72). There is no ambiguity, no room for sacramentalism here.43 In his brief comment on question 72, Ursinus distinguishes between proper and improper sacramental speech. It is improper, he says, to say that the sign is the thing itself, so it would be wrong to say that “baptism is the washing of regeneration” or that the sign “confers the thing.” On the other hand, Ursinus explains, “It is a proper form of speech when those who receive the sign are said to receive the thing signified, as ‘he that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved.’ The same is true when the sign is said to signify the thing, as when it is said, ‘Baptism is the sign of the washing away of sin.’ ‘He gave unto them circumcision to be a sign of the covenant.’”44 Here the parallelism between baptism and the Lord’s Supper is an important interpretative clue. Question 78 says explicitly that “as the water in baptism is not changed into the blood of Christ, nor becomes the washing away of sins itself, being only the divine token and assurance thereof, so also in the Lord’s Supper.”

Already in question 69 we have an important semiotic marker—the distinction between “outward” and “inward.” “How is it signified and sealed to you in Holy Baptism that you have part in the one sacrifice of Christ on the cross?”45 The answer distinguishes between “outward washing with water” and the inward washing of the soul “with His blood and Spirit.” These two are related by way of a certain sacramental union. It is not the univocal predication of Rome, but neither is it the intellectualist account of Zwingli nor the interpenetration of sign and thing signified that we find in Luther, but rather an analogical union. Calvin construes this semiotic relationship as analogical or metonymy. “On account of the affinity which the things signified have with their symbols, the name of the thing was given to the symbol—figuratively, indeed—but not without a most fitting analogy.”46 The HC echoes this down to the very language: “God speaks thus not without great cause” (HC 73).

Ursinus, too, speaks of an analogy between sign and thing signified.47 43. Incidentally, this and similar statements have earned the Reformed the moniker sacramentarians because, according to the Gnesio-Lutherans, the Reformed separated too sharply between sign and thing signified, even to the point of rendering the sign useless.

44. Ursinus, Commentary, 364–65.

45. The German original text has “reminded and assured” (erinnert und versichert) rather than “signified and sealed.”

46. Calvin, Institutes, 4.17.21.

47. Ursinus, Commentary, 365.

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While sign and reality are to be distinguished, the sacramental union, not unlike the hypostatic union, is a distinction without a separation (distinctio sed non separatio).48 This is the import of question 73. The polemic in question 72 is targeting the Roman Catholic Church, while the polemic in question 73 is geared more toward the Anabaptists, who would separate the sign from the reality. Ursinus states that “the exhibition of the things signified is inseparably connected (coniuncta nimirum) with the signs used in the sacraments.”49 He then anticipates a potential objection, quite possibly from the side of the Anabaptists: Obj. 1. Baptism is called an external washing with water. Therefore it is nothing more than a mere sign.

Ans. This objection separates things which ought not to be disjoined; for when we say that baptism is an external sign, we connect with it the thing signified. Hence we do not add the exclusive particle only.

Baptism without the promise would, indeed, be a mere naked sign; and to unbelievers, who do not receive the promise with faith, it is only an external washing with water, as in the case of Simon Magus; but the promise and the thing signified are joined with the sign in the proper use of the sacraments.50

Some see in the bare reference to the Holy Spirit in the answer to question 72—which does not mention the word of promise—a spiritualistic tendency.51 However, it is clear that questions 72 and 73 (which begin by making reference to God’s act of speaking, i.e., the promise mentioned earlier) are a denial and an affirmation that are meant to be read and confessed together. In any case, in all of these questions, we have to keep in mind the decision made as early as question 65 of coordinating the work of the Holy Spirit with the word and of coordinating the sacraments and the word in question 67. After all, as we have seen, question 72 is itself a commentary on a baptism promise, namely that of Acts 22:16. We should read question 72, then, as “the Holy Spirit cleanses us from all sin” through the word. This reading is verified by the reference in the margin to Ephesians 5:26–27, which speaks of the “washing of water by the word” (emphasis added).

What, then, is the “thing” that keeps sign and reality together, distinct yet not separate? The HC teaches that “Christ instituted this outward washing 48. Ursinus draws a parallel between the sacramental union and the hypostatic union in Commentary, 348.

49. Ursinus, Commentary, 365.

50. Ursinus, Commentary, 358.

51. For example Neuser, “Die Tauflehre des Heidelberger Katechismus,” 15.

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with water and joined to it this promise, that I am washed with His blood and Spirit from the pollution of my soul, that is, from all my sins, as certainly as I am washed outwardly with water, whereby commonly the filthiness of the body is taken away” (HC 69, emphasis added). We are thrown back again to the category of promise. Any metaphysical description of the sacramental union of sign and thing signified is entirely lacking in the HC. There is no hint of a body-soul dualism, but merely the contrast between external, physical and internal, spiritual realities.52 The HC clearly absorbed the Calvinian and Augustinian duality of the external and the internal.53 In utterly nonscholastic fashion, but in clear Calvinian fashion, the HC does not explain away the mysterious union. In the final analysis, any attempt at explaining this union has to stop at God’s sure word of promise.

This puts us in the position of understanding the positive explanation of the sacramental speech and union in question 73. “God speaks thus not without great cause.” But what is that great cause? “God speaks thus with great cause, namely, not only to teach us thereby that just as the filthiness of the body is taken away by water, so our sins are taken away by the blood and Spirit of Christ; but much more, that by this divine pledge and token He may assure us that we are as really washed from our sins spiritually as our bodies are washed with water.”

Here we see another instance of the parallelism that is threaded throughout questions 65 through 80—between “declaring/reminding/signifying” and “confirming/assuring/sealing.” The reason God Himself “calls baptism the washing of regeneration and the washing away of sins” is first to teach, but “much more” to assure us.

The teaching element is directed at our intelligence, our understanding.

We understand and experience with our senses that water applied to our dirty bodies unmistakably cleanse them from filth. Then comes the transfer. We make the intellectual connection that a similar thing happens when the blood and Spirit of Christ come to wash our souls from sins. But that is not all we must believe. After all, we remember that faith is “not only a sure knowledge whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in His Word, but also a hearty trust, which the Holy Spirit works in me by the Gospel, that not only to others, but to me also, forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness, and salvation are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of 52. Neuser, “Die Tauflehre des Heidelberger Katechismus,” 14.

53. Cf. “The Sacraments” by Wim Janse in Calvin Handbook, ed. Herman J. Selderhuis (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 351.

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Christ’s merits” (HC 21). The assurance element is that we may—indeed, we must—obediently believe that there is an inseparable connection between sign and reality. We must believe the promise, and the promise is “I am washed with His blood and Spirit from the pollution of my soul, that is, from all my sins, as certainly as I am washed outwardly with water, whereby commonly the filthiness of the body is taken away” (HC 69, emphasis added). “As certainly as” is the important key phrase that recurs in question 79 regarding the Lord’s Supper, and this certainty is derived from the certainty and faithfulness of the divine promise.

The Work of One God in Three Persons It has been impossible to avoid referencing the explicit Trinitarian structure in the HC’s teaching on the sacraments. The sacraments are instituted by God (HC 66), direct our faith to Christ (HC 67), and are used by the Holy Spirit to confirm our faith (HC 65 and 67). Question 70 describes the benefits of baptism in explicitly Trinitarian fashion and thereby anticipates the Trinitarian formula that question 71 gives as the words of institution of baptism from Matthew 28:19. Questions 70—and 74, as we shall see—explain or provide comment, as it were, on the Trinitarian structure of the baptismal formula.

In Ursinus’s definition of baptism in the Commentary, we find this Trinitarian structure reflected again.54 Additionally, the practice of baptism in the Palatinate beautifully illumines and adorns the doctrine found in the HC. The “Form for the Administration of Baptism,” preceding the catechism in the church order, says: In order to confirm this promise to our weak faith and to seal it to our bodies, the Lord commanded that we be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Whereas, 1. In baptizing us in the name of the Father, “he testifies to us as with a visible oath our life long that God will be our Father and the Father of our seed after us, that he will provide us with all necessities of body and soul and work all evil for our good, even as all creatures cannot do us harm on account of the covenant which we have with God, but must serve our salvation.”

2. In baptizing us in the name of the Son, “he promises to us that all that the Son did and suffered belongs to us. Also, that he will be our Saviour and the Saviour of our children, anoints us with his saving grace, cleanses 54. Ursinus, Commentary, 357.

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A Faith Worth Teaching us by his holy conception, birth, suffering and dying from all our filth and sin, nailing our curse and malediction to the cross, washing it off with his blood and burying it, ridding us from the pain of hell; that he clothes us with his righteousness by means of his resurrection and ascension, intercedes for us before the heavenly throne, and will present us glorious and blameless before the face of the Father at the last day.”

3. In baptizing us in the name of the Holy Spirit, “we are promised that the Holy Spirit will be our teacher and the teacher of our children eternally, making us into true members of Christ’s body, so that we have part in Christ and all his benefits together with all the members of the Christian churches, that he will not remember our sins in eternity, that the indwelling sin and weakness that remains will be mortified more and more as we begin the new life, and that in the blessed resurrection (which will make our flesh to be like the body of Christ) this new life will be perfectly revealed in us.55

This portion of the form, which is read during baptisms, beautifully summarizes the Trinitarian benefits of the promise of baptism. It anticipates what we will see in question 74, namely, that infant baptism is also argued for in a Trinitarian fashion.

Promise and Obligation, Blessing and Curse One more theological motif bears mentioning before we turn to the final question on infant baptism. In keeping with the general theme and purpose of the HC, to exhibit the comfort (Trost) of the gospel (question 1), the treatment on baptism focuses on the comfort this sacrament provides for us.

Conversely, when Ursinus rejects the Anabaptist error of failing to baptize covenant children, one of the sore consequences he draws out is that “the denial of infant baptism is…in direct opposition to the word of God, and the comfort of the church.”56 On the other hand, emphasizing the promissory character throughout the questions on baptism may lead to the imbalanced view or suspicion that baptism is all promise and no obligation, that it is all blessing and no curse. That, however, is far from the truth.

Question 65 has led us to ask from where true faith originates. But question 64 has already anticipated and preempted a common misunderstanding of the doctrine of justification by true faith prior to the discussion of the sacraments: “Does not this doctrine make men careless and profane?” The 55. Niesel, Bekenntnisschriften und Kirchenordnungen, 144–45, emphasis added.

56. Ursinus, Commentary, 368.

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answer is unambiguous: “No, for it is impossible that those who are implanted into Christ by true faith, should not bring forth fruits of thankfulness.” The entire third part of the HC (”On Thankfulness”), which follows on the heels of the discussion of the sacraments and discipline in connection with them, is, in a sense, assumed here under the concept of thankfulness. Indeed, the third use of the law (which forms the substance of part 3) is assumed.

More specifically, we have already treated of the methodological division between the work and realm of the Son of God and those of the Holy Spirit in question 70. This has the effect that not only “forgiveness of sin from God through grace” (i.e., justification) comes into view, but also the entire Christian life, including the renovative aspects—“to be renewed by the Holy Spirit and sanctified to be members of Christ, so that we may more and more die unto sin and lead holy and unblamable lives.” Thus, the promise of the gospel (HC 69) is understood to entail an obligation (HC 70), namely that of living holy lives, lives becoming of the gospel.

This is but an echo of question 43 on the sacrifice of Christ, which, as we have seen, is the substance of the sacraments (HC 67, 69, and 75). There we read that the benefit we receive from the sacrifice and death of Christ on the cross is not only the crucifixion of our old man but also our offering “ourselves unto Him a sacrifice of thanksgiving.” Clearly, then, there is no danger of antinomianism in the strong emphasis on the monergistic word of promise in baptism. Quite the contrary: the very definition of the sacraments, and of baptism in particular as a “sign and seal” of the covenant of grace, presupposes the covenant promises as well as the covenant obligations, blessings for those who “keep the covenant” but curses for the covenant breakers, that is, for those with whom the promise never comes to fruition.

Ursinus comments, “Sacraments are rites, or ceremonies instituted by God to the end, that they may be signs of the covenant, or of God’s good will towards us, and of the obligation of the church to repentance and faith.”57 Thus, while baptism is the sign of entrance into the covenant community of God, a child who grows up and remains a member of that covenant community, under God’s clear promises, is required to “own” the promises and the substance of the covenant by faith. If that should never happen, church discipline and, in the final consequence, excommunication follow.

Ursinus also expresses this covenantal perspective of baptism as a blessing and a curse in terms of a redemptive-historical understanding: 57. Ursinus, Commentary, 66, emphasis added.

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A Faith Worth Teaching Those who are baptized are plunged, as it were, in affliction; but with the full assurance of deliverance. It is for this reason that Christ speaks of afflictions under the name of baptism, saying, “Are ye able to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” (Matt. 20:22) The ceremony connected with baptism intimates deliverance from our varied afflictions. We are immersed, but not drowned, or suffocated. It is in respect to this end that baptism is compared to the flood; for as in the flood, Noah and his family who were shut up in the ark were saved, yet not without much anxiety and peril, whilst the rest of mankind who were without the ark perished; so, those who are in the church, and who cleave to Christ, will most certainly be delivered at the proper time, although they may be pressed with afflictions and dangers from every side; whilst those who are out of the church will be overwhelmed “with the deluge of sin and destruction.” We may here appropriately refer to the passage of Paul, where he compares the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea to baptism: “All were baptized unto Moses in the cloud, and in the sea” (1 Cor. 10, 2).58

Baptism is a double-edged sword. For those who “cleave to Christ” it is a sign of blessing, and for those who remain “out of the church” a sign of cursing.59 This covenantal substratum is also evident in another way. Given the context of the system of catechism discussed in this chapter, the HC envisions a structure of covenantal discipleship, of the Christian life that begins only with baptism. In the case of children, their baptism will have to be—in the language of another catechism—“improved upon”60 until they come to an age where they are ready to make public profession of faith, after extended catechesis in the faith of the church. In the language of the church order, those who are baptized, when they come to an age of understanding, are to be constantly admonished “that by receiving this divine covenant sign and seal of Baptism publicly and in the presence of God, his angels and the entire church, he has rejected the devil and the world with her schemes and lusts and dedicated himself to live his whole life in all holiness and obedience towards his holy gospel.”61 The “Form for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper,” which cannot be treated here, as well as the entire process of admission to the Lord’s Table provide ample evidence that a public profession of faith and admission to the Table are the crowning results of the process begun at baptism. Ursinus 58. Ursinus, Commentary, 360.

59. Cf. John V. Fesko, Word, Water, and Spirit: A Reformed Perspective on Baptism (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2010), 100.

60. Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 167.

61. Niesel, Bekenntnisschriften und Kirchenordnungen, 143–44.

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describes the “chief end of Baptism” as the “the confirmation of our faith, or a solemn declaration by which Christ testifies that he washes us with his blood and Spirit, and confers upon us remission of sins, and the Holy Ghost, who regenerates and sanctifies us unto eternal life.”62 The second end, however, is just as important and is “the declaration of our duty to God, and the binding of ourselves and the Church to gratitude, or to faith and repentance.”63 Thus baptism, while primarily a promise, entails an obligation—the duty to believe and live as a disciple of Christ.

Baptism cannot be repeated, even as it expresses God’s enduring willingness to receive us into His favor. It “remains for ever sure and valid,” but only “in the case of those who repent.”64 The Validity and Beauty of Infant Baptism From the full-blown covenantal view of baptism as sign and seal of the covenant of grace—a sign of blessing and life to those who own the covenant promise by faith and a sign of cursing and death for those who break it by unbelief—it is only a small step to what the HC argues for last: the validity of infant baptism.

Looking at the argument in question 74, we see a line of reasoning consisting of six steps: 1. Children belong to the covenant together with their parents.

2. All members of the “covenant and church of God” are entitled to the sign of that covenant. This includes children.

3. Those to whom the benefit of “redemption from sin” and regeneration are promised are also entitled to baptism. This, again, includes children.

4. Baptism is the sign of entrance, or “ingrafting,” into the church.

There are no preconditions other than covenant membership, which, in light of step 1, includes children.

5. The sacraments set apart those who are in the church from those who are “out of the church.” Those in the church should receive the sign, regardless of age. In light of step 3, this includes children.

6. The analogy between circumcision and baptism.65 62. Ursinus, Commentary, 358.

63. Ursinus, Commentary, 358.

64. Ursinus, Commentary, 359. This thoroughly reflects Calvin’s definition that baptism is both promise and obligation, both blessing and judgment. Institutes, 4.14.19; 4.16.3.

65. Ursinus, Commentary, 366–67; for the summary, cf. Fesko, who lists only four arguments. Word, Water, and Spirit, 101.

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The first step, the principle of covenant succession, is established by simple reference to Genesis 17, the record of the covenant of grace God established with Abraham, which explicitly includes his offspring, “to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee” (Gen. 17:7). The framers of the HC, along with those of all the other mainstream Reformed confessions, saw as a commonplace that the essence of the covenant of grace is that it includes families, households, and, therefore—a maiore ad minus (from the greater to the lesser)—children of believers. The New Testament nowhere undertakes a radical redefinition of the nature of the covenant of grace, but it would have been radical for children to be excommunicated from the covenant community with the advent of Christ. Rather, Ursinus sees New Testament proof for continuity with respect to the status of children in both testaments in the dominical: “Suffer the little children to come unto me; for such is the kingdom of heaven.”66 The baptismal form puts it straightforwardly: “But now, our Lord Jesus Christ did not come into the world to narrow the grace of his heavenly Father, but to extend the covenant of grace which was established with Israel beforehand throughout the whole world.”67 Thus, it is established that children “as well as their parents, belong to the covenant and people of God” (HC 74). And because they do, they are secondly entitled to the sign and seal of that covenant—which is baptism by water in the triune name of God. Children of believers are clearly not secondclass members of the visible church.

The third step is proving that “through the blood of Christ both redemption from sin and the Holy Spirit, who works faith, are promised to [the children] no less than to their parents.” In customary fashion, the HC starts by understanding Luke 1:14–15 to be proof that, in general, babies can very well be “filled with the Holy Spirit, even from [their] mother’s womb,” as John the Baptist was, and that there are children who can rightfully claim along with the psalmist, “Thou art my God from my mother’s belly” (Ps. 22:10). Most importantly, however, Acts 2:38–39 mentions both the promise of forgiveness of sins (redemption) and the gift of the Holy Spirit and says “the promise is unto you, and to your children.” As Ursinus puts it, “Those unto whom the things signified belong, unto them the sign also belongs.”68 The fourth step is to prove that there are no preconditions for baptism other than covenant membership, which includes children. It is here that baptism and the Lord’s Supper differ most drastically. While the Lord’s Supper 66. Ursinus, Commentary, 366.

67. Niesel, Bekenntnisschriften und Kirchenordnungen, 146, emphasis added.

68. Ursinus, Commentary, 366.

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requires that those who would be admitted to the Table be “displeased with themselves for their sins, yet trust that these are forgiven them” and that they “desire more and more to strengthen their faith and to amend their life” (HC 81), there are no such prerequisites for baptism. Why? Because baptism does not look back on anything previously wrought in the child but rather concerns the beginning of the Christian life. It is the sign by which they are “to be ingrafted into the Christian Church” (HC 74). Infant baptism looks forward to the exercise of true faith and anticipates the grown child owning the covenant promise by faith, making public profession in order to be admitted to the Lord’s Table. In Nevin’s words, “Baptism becomes complete only in the personal assumption of its vows on the part of its subject.”69 The fifth argument is that the church must be distinguished from “all the various sects,”70 and those in the church should be distinguished from those who are “out of the church.”71 Consequently, the children of believers must also be “distinguished from the children of unbelievers” (HC 74). Those in the church should receive the sign, regardless of age.

The last step in the argument is the analogy between circumcision and baptism. This analogy is proven first by the identity in spiritual meaning of the two rites.72 Both are signs and seals of the covenant of grace; both are signs of ingrafting into the church; both signify redemption and forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit; both distinguish those who receive them from the unbelieving world. But second, the HC sees explicit proof for continuity in substance from circumcision to baptism in Paul’s teaching in Colossians 2:11–12. Circumcision, then, clearly is “in place of which in the New Testament Baptism is appointed” (HC 74). “Baptism, therefore, is our circumcision, or the sacrament by which the same things are confirmed unto us.”73 Another way of looking at the entire line of argumentation in question 74 is to follow the Trinitarian structure employed. Infants are to be baptized because they “belong to the covenant…of God” and are promised redemption from sin “through the blood of Christ” and the gift of “the Holy Spirit, who works faith.” This way of framing the answer is undoubtedly intended to harken back to Christ’s words of institution of baptism in Matthew 28:18– 19. Therefore, the Great Commission already entails at least the possibility, if 69. Nevin, History and Genius, 160.

70. Ursinus, Commentary, 367.

71. Ursinus, Commentary, 360.

72. Ursinus copiously examines the nature and meaning of the Old Testament rite of circumcision and sees a clear analogy on the level of the spiritual meaning. Commentary, 373–76.

73. Ursinus, Commentary, 367, emphasis added.

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not the clear expectation, that infants born into covenant families be baptized after birth or together with their parents.

Conclusion Even here, in question 74, the most central element of the HC’s teaching on baptism is the promise. For the HC, for the Reformed more generally, as much as for Luther and the Lutherans,74 rejection of infant baptism is a rejection of the core of the gospel message. It is “a great sin to contemn or neglect this ordinance,”75 a folly “hatched by the devil,” and a “detestable heresy,” as Ursinus says, summarizing the error of the Anabaptists.76 While the HC leaves the topic of infant baptism with question 75, it does not lose sight of it in subsequent questions. As we have seen throughout, infant baptism as envisioned in the HC is not a “stand-alone” rite, but rather culminates (by the Holy Spirit’s grace through the system of catechism) in admission to the Lord’s Table by public profession of faith before the entire church. Even the questions following the discussion on the Lord’s Supper, namely those on church discipline (HC 81–85), are vitally connected and even required by what the HC teaches on infant baptism. Ursinus puts it well when he says that “all the children of those that believe are included in the covenant, and church of God, unless they exclude themselves.”77 This, once again, draws our attention to the obligatory aspect of covenantal infant baptism. Children who, growing up, “exclude themselves” by their own obvious unbelief (i.e., a denial to make profession of faith) are also to be “excluded from the Christian communion, and by God Himself from the kingdom of Christ” (HC 85).

Given the wonderful promise of baptism, together with the earnest obligation to believe, what then can be more important for the church than to continuously and fervently pray for her covenant children, as the Reformed in the Palatinate prayed so often: Oh Almighty and eternal God, Thou, who hast according to Thy severe judgment punished the unbelieving and unrepentant world with the flood, and hast according to Thy great mercy saved and protected believing Noah and his family; Thou, who hast drowned the obstinate Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, and hast led Thy people Israel through the midst of the Sea upon dry ground, by which baptism was signified—we beseech Thee, that Thou wilt be pleased of Thine infinite 74. Cf. Large Catechism, 4.31.

75. Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), art. 28:5.

76. Ursinus, Commentary, 367–68.

77. Ursinus, Commentary, 366, emphasis added.

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mercy, graciously to look upon these children and incorporate them by Thy Holy Spirit into Thy Son Jesus Christ, that they may be buried with Him into His death, and be raised with Him in newness of life; that they may daily follow Him, joyfully bearing their cross, and cleave unto Him in true faith, firm hope, and ardent love; that they may, with a comfortable sense of Thy favour, leave this life, which is nothing but a continual death, and at the last day may appear without terror before the judgment seat of Christ Thy Son, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with Thee and the Holy Ghost, one only God, lives and reigns forever. Amen.78 78. The Psalter: With Doctrinal Standards, Liturgy, and Church Order (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2010), 127.