A Reformed Theology Of Baptism

For the second generation of Reformed theologians (Heinrich Bullinger [d. 1572], John Calvin [d. 1564], John Knox [d. 1572]), baptism is a seal confirming and ratifying God's promise in the Word to save. Infant baptism does not accomplish salvation or free the child from original sin; rather, it sets the infant on a path toward repentance, conversion, and personal faith, a path that takes place within God's covenant community, the church. Baptism is recognized and celebrated by Reformed churches as one of two sacraments which, when they are rightly administered, comprise the marks of the true church. Consistently, John Calvin (in The Institutes of the Christian Religion [1559]), Heinrich Bullinger (in the Second Helvetic Confession [1566]), and the Heidelberg Catechism ([1563], question and answer 67) insisted that the purpose of the sacraments, like Scripture, is "to offer and set forth Christ to us" through the illuminations of the Holy Spirit. Unlike the Anabaptist position, they …