“As a promissory seal of our adoption, declaring grace in the continuous present and in the future, baptism never ceases to call us to the response of faith in the here and now. The force of the grace of adoption–founded upon a unilateral initiative of love–continues throughout the adoptive child’s life, but also summons them to live out of that grace and not to turn their backs on it.”

In considering the differences between those who support and those who oppose the baptism of infants, focusing too narrowly upon the need for faith in the recipients of the rite can be misleading, for among Reformed Christians this necessity is granted on both sides of the debate. No less than for those who baptize only on the basis of a candidate’s sincere personal confession of their faith, those who baptize infants hold that faith is required for the realization of its intended meaning. The differences between the stances generally lie less in this principle than in contrary understandings of the character of faith and of what and how baptism means.

It is not my purpose here to explore the important question of different understandings of the character of faith. In treating the infant children of believers as believers themselves–as members of the visible church–we recognize, among many other things, that a person’s ‘true self’ and loyalties are not solely private, individual, internal, and chosen, but are also public, relational, external, and given.

Rather, the intent of this article is to explore contrasting treatments of a key dimension of the doctrine of baptism that, while not decisively determining positions on either side of the question, has for very good reasons often been closely correlated with them. Though often neglected, this dimension of baptismal doctrine is an exceedingly significant one; it is one of the principal areas in which the magisterial Reformed doctrines of baptism distinguished themselves from alternative positions among their Roman Catholic and Anabaptist contemporaries.

The contrasting positions at this point are perhaps best exposed through the question ‘when is the grace of baptism received?’ For Anabaptists and Baptists the grace signified in baptism is typically understood to be grace already received: baptism looks back to the event of the baptismal candidate’s spiritual deliverance. For this position, baptism is largely placed on the side of human response: it is a rite that we undergo in obedience to Christ, signifying our faith, repentance, and our self-surrender to him, and our commitment to living faithfully for him in the future. As it relates to the grace it signifies, for Anabaptists and Baptists, baptism is predominantly retrospective, looking back to a salvation largely completed.

In characterizing magisterial Reformed objections to the Roman Catholic understanding of baptism at the time of the Reformation, some commentators have often focused too narrowly upon the theme of baptismal efficacy. While firmly opposing notions of ex opere operato, few of the magisterial Reformers resisted the notion of baptismal efficacy as such, but rather insisted upon the necessity of faith for the reception and enjoyment of this efficacy, upon God’s freedom in the bestowal of his grace, and upon the Word-based character of the sacraments. If we mistakenly equate baptismal efficacy with an ex opere operato mode of efficacy, we are in danger of missing the fact that the magisterial Reformers presented a higher and more efficacious doctrine of baptism than their Roman Catholic interlocutors.

It is at this juncture that the significance of the ‘when’ question should be recognized. The Roman Catholics related the grace of baptism to the performance of the rite itself. For them, the grace signified in baptism was a grace received through the performance of the rite. The answer to the ‘when’ question was ‘at the point of baptism itself.’ Yet the grace of baptism received through the ex opere operato performance of baptism–so powerfully efficacious at the time of the performance–swiftly lost its efficacy. The grace of baptism, once given, was radically at the mercy of the baptismal candidate’s subsequent behaviour. The Canons of Trent (Session XIV in particular) reveal that, the grace of baptism being easily forfeited by sinners who failed to persevere in it, it was necessary to supplement its grace with that of another sacrament–penance. Penance was the answer to the acute problem of post-baptismal sin and to the (temporally) limited efficacy of the grace of baptism. The result was the diminishment of baptismal grace within the sacramental economy: beyond giving an initial impetus, baptism was swiftly substituted for by other sources of grace.

The perceived problem of post-baptismal sin robbing baptismal grace of its efficacy was by no means a new one. Indeed, the earliest anti-paedobaptist argument in the Christian tradition was prompted by this very issue. In chapter 18 of De Baptismo, Tertullian argues that the delay of baptism should be preferred, especially in the case of young children and the unmarried, who are particularly vulnerable to temptation and risk squandering and falling from baptismal grace. Although baptism grants the remission of sins, those who receive it and fall into sin again may find themselves in a worse state than those who have never been baptized (De Poenitentia VI). Forgiveness after such a post-baptismal lapse occurs through a second repentance, granting the penitent one final strike (‘…although the gate of forgiveness has been shut and fastened up with the bar of baptism, [God] has permitted it still to stand somewhat open. In the vestibule He has stationed the second repentance for opening to such as knock: but now once for all, because now for the second time; but never more because the last time it had been in vain.’ De Poenitentia VII). The grace of baptism is great and marvellous in its initial power, but weak in its long term efficacy. Baptismal grace soon retreats in the rear view mirror of the Christian life, leaving us dependent upon discovering new sources of divine forgiveness. While the Roman Catholics at the time of the Reformation baptized infants, believing such baptism necessary for the remission of original sin (Canons of Trent, Session V), in common with Tertullian they had a weak view of baptismal efficacy. Despite the many other differences between their sacramental theologies, the Roman Catholics shared with the Anabaptists and the Baptists the conviction that baptism predominantly stood for past grace.

In contrast to the Roman Catholics, the accent of the magisterial Reformed teaching concerning infant baptism did not rest primarily upon the negative retrospective dimension of remission of original sin. The positive flavour of the magisterial Reformed doctrine of infant baptism was of a piece with the character and logic of its doctrine of baptism more generally, a doctrine within which the prospective and promissory force of baptismal grace was given considerable prominence. When the grace baptism signifies is neither chiefly a grace already received nor merely a grace received at, yet largely limited to, the time of and period immediately following the reception of the sacrament, there is a much more positive rationale to give it to those with the most incipient forms of faith.