I had someone tell me today that Baptism (and/or someone being in the covenant) gives them a better chance of being a Christian. I didn't like that language at all and replied that I thought that rather it exposes them to the means of grace more.

How would you respond to what this person said? The impression I had when they said what they said was that a child is raised in a Christian home, exposed to the means of grace more, and so it is more likely that their child will be a Christian. How would you better word this?

__________________
Rev. Andrew J. Barnes
Husband of Dena
Pastor of Tchula Presbyterian Church

I would say a child is incredibly blessed to be in a believing household where he is exposed to the means of grace from the time of his birth. He is blessed in a way that an unbelieving child is not. As God works through means, he is regularly exposed to those means that he might mature in the things of God and come to an adult confession of faith in Christ. He is also under stricter judgement from God having been exposed to much blessing should he repudiate the faith that has been regularly put before him.

__________________
Rich
Northern VA
PCA

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In my opinion, its simply the wrong question to ask, or the wrong attitude to take respecting the sacrament--that somehow the child baptized has more likelihood of salvation, or of being elect, yada yada. It's all barking up the wrong tree.

The blessing is totally in how one receives the grace exhibited in the sacrament BY FAITH. For the infants, the appreciated blessing comes when/if they accept the reality of the signification by faith. Meanwhile, the church has been blessed even before the child has, through the application and observation of the promises-made-visible, and through the "right use" of baptism in its "improvement" by those present and already baptized.

It is always beneficial to perform our rites as God has prescribed them. It is always better to perform them as instructed than contrary to that instruction. But to focus on the ritual as though such a thing in itself has force to make probable or predictable (%) the saving of a soul is to misuse the sacrament.

Would anyone say such a thing concerning an adult? Would we point to an adult baptized, and dare to say: "This proves it more likely that this person is a saved individual, than that he's not." That is not the purpose of the sacrament, even if it were a demonstrable truth that more saved people were baptized than weren't. Because there are so many unsaved persons who are baptized! It's entirely possible that in some populations, there are more unsaved-and-baptized persons walking about than there are saved-and-baptized. And nevermind the mode or the timing of the baptism!

Baptism is only a sign, and the teaching that explains the sign, and goes along with the sign, and surrounds the person, and follows the person--THAT, brethren, is what blesses an adult or infant who is properly baptized.

__________________
Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


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Well said. Baptism is supposed to initiate one into a community where one can be discipled. I think this fact is ignored far too often.

Some see in the commandment in Matt 28:18 the idea that baptizing disciples means baptizing the saved. No, it means, to baptize a person so that they might be disciples and be taught everything the Lord has commanded them. This is why baptism happens immediately and not after the person has "proven" themselves fully saved.

I think the defect in the question is to always see baptism and salvation purely in elective terms instead, also, as something that the Church is about in the means of Word and Sacrament.

We never truly know who the saved are - just who the disciples are.