Calvin on Baptism again

A couple of thoughts on the Calvin quotations I posted yesterday, inspired by a reader’s response.

1) Calvin appeals to his doctrine of “accommodation” to explain why the sign of baptism is necessary. God does speak in ways we can grasp; if that’s all accommodation is, fine. But it often carries the implication that signs are somehow a imprecise, second-best form of communication. That is a false step, and a devastating one, in that it suggests that we might hope to transcend signs and communicate with God in a direct, spiritual manner. God always employs signs in communicating Himself to us (words, as Augustine said, being signs), and that is not a “husk” that needs to be discarded in favor of some non-significant “kernel.” That’s just the way the Triune God communicates with human beings.

2) Calvin also seems to take away with one hand what he gives with another. Baptism is the “washing of the soul,” and yet the Spirit is free to wash souls or not through the sign of baptism. But then how is baptism a “seal” that increases our assurance of the promise? The Spirit washes the souls of the elect in baptism, so to know whether baptism has really been effective we need to have some independent confirmation of our election – some experience, some inward voice, some direct unaccommodated contact with God that bypasses the sign. I see this as a real tension in Calvin’s sacramental theology, and in all subsequent Reformed sacramental theology, and it’s the tension that has opened into a wound within contemporary Reformed discussions.

The resolution, it seems to me, has to be in a somewhat “Lutheran” direction. The sacrament is an enacted, visible promise of God. He is not pretending or deceiving us. He is true to His word. When He baptizes us, He’s saying He loves us and is drawing us into His family and into His fellowship. The sacrament is also an act: God doesn’t just promise to bring us into His family and fellowhip. That’s what’s actually happening in baptism. Through baptism, the baptized is brought into the family of God, and made a member of the body and bride of the Son of God. In response to God’s promise and His initiative of love, we are to trust Him, perseveringly to trust Him.

Those who are not elect will, of course, not trust Him at all or will not trust Him perseveringly. But we don’t need to know whether we’re in that category to respond with trust. We don’t need the “direct access” that bypasses the accommodated sign. The promise is given in the sign, the act is done by the sign. We believe that God has actually done for us what He says He does in baptism, and live out of that faith.