Baptismal Exhortation

Baptismal Exhortation

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(Based on the Form of Administration of the Sacraments used in the French-speaking congregation in Geneva, Switzerland, at the time if John Calvin)
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Scripture Reading: John 3:1-8
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The Lord Jesus told us how spiritually poor and wretched we all are, even as we were born, by telling us that we need to be born again. Jesus told Nicodemus that, in order to enter the Kingdom of God, we must all be born again. This gives us clear evidence that the way we were born into this world was corrupt and altogether accursed and sinful, and it leads only to death. It is by this that he exhorts us to humble ourselves before him and be displeased with our sinful state and seek his grace and kindness. Only through his grace and power can we ever be rid of our old perverse and corrupt sinful self. Yet, this truth stands as supremely important: we can never receive his saving grace and power until we get rid of all the other things that we trust in, whether it be our own goodness, our own knowledge, our self-confidence, or anything else. No matter what it is, it can never save us, because only Christ and his righteousness can save those who are as sinful and corrupted as we are.
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However, after Christ had shown us how wretched and miserable we are as sinners and what a hopeless estate we are in because of our sin, Christ himself also consoles us with the promise of his mercy and grace. The promise that he gives us here in the gospel is the promise of regeneration, or causing us to be born again by water and the Spirit, and bringing us into a new kind of life, which is the entrance into his kingdom. The regeneration of which he speaks consists of two parts. First, thecompletely renunciation of ourselves—all our wisdom, all our pleasure, and all our will; in other words, we die to ourselves and all our own sinful purposes and desires. Second, we seek to follow the light given to us in God’s Word, seeking to be obedient to his commandments in all ways by the leading and guiding of his Holy Spirit.
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Now, both of these aspects of regeneration are found only in Jesus Christ himself. His death is such that, when we participate in him who has suffered and died for us, we do, in a very real sense, bury our old selves and our sin, having put it to death in the death of Christ, so that our old carnal desires would be more and more mortified. Just as our old self and all its old desires are buried with him, so our new man, the new principle of life, is born in us as we are raised up with Christ in his resurrection, so long as his Spirit is the one who is leading, guiding, and directing us in our lives to produce faith and obedience in us.
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But as important as the renovation of our old nature is, the most important element in the salvation that we have in Jesus Christ is the forgiveness of our sins through the blood of Jesus Christ. Because of God’s mercy and Christ’s work on the cross, our Lord completely blots out our sins, and he even tells us that he remembers them no more, so that we no longer come under the judgment and condemnation of God, which we rightly deserve because we are sinners in God’s sight, both by birth and action.
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All these graces come upon us, God tells us through the words of the Gospel writer John, by water and the Spirit. In other words, when God is pleased to incorporate us into his body the Church through baptism, he attests to us the washing away of our sins and the new birth by the Holy Spirit. God himself has ordained that the element of water symbolize and authenticate to us that, just as water washes the body from all its uncleanness and filth, so God himself is willing and able to wash us clean from our sinfulness and corruption to purify our dirty souls. He also uses it to symbolize the union we have with Jesus Christ who died and was and resurrected, so that we would always remember to account ourselves as dead unto sin and alive unto righteousness.
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So it is that, in baptism, we receive great grace and benefit, provided we do not destroy the virtue of the sacrament by our ingratitude and unbelief. In baptism, God gives us sure evidence that he is willing to be forgiving toward us, not imputing our sins to us. He also promises that he will assist us in our lifelong battle against the world, the flesh, and our Archenemy, Satan, so that we will gain ultimate victory over them and live in the freedom of his glorious kingdom, the Kingdom of Righteousness.
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Because we know that all these things are accomplished by the grace of Jesus Christ alone, we can be assured that the virtue and benefit of baptism is all in him and not in any power of the water itself. In fact, we have no other washing but the washing of his blood, and we have no other rebirth and renovation than Christ’s own death and resurrection. But God has chosen to communicate these awesome benefits and blessings through the sacraments he has given to his Church. So these things are ours if we will receive them from his gracious hand, because he has already given them to us and given us good reason to believe that these promises are true.
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However, God was not pleased only to bring each one of us into his family and kingdom by his grace, he extended his goodness even further, by making the wonderful promise to be our God and the God of our children to a thousand generations. So it is that, even though the children of believers are sinful and corrupted like all men who are descendents of Adam, God still accepts them because of his Covenant and adopts them into his family, the Church, as well. This is the reason that, even from the time of Abraham, God commanded that all the children born into the Church would receive the sign of the Covenant—in the Old Covenant, it was the sign of circumcision, but in the New Covenant, it is the sign of baptism, both of which have the same meaning.
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Now of this we are certain: Jesus Christ came to earth, not to make God’s grace less than it was to the Patriarchs and to the Children of Israel, but to make it greater and with farther-reaching effects. Therefore, it should not be doubted among Christians that God includes children in his New Covenant just as well as he did in the Old Covenant among the Hebrew people. This we know by the testimony of the Apostle Paul as well; he tells us plainly that the children of believers are sanctified from the womb and set apart from the children of pagans and unbelievers. It was for this reason that when the people brought their children to Jesus to have them blessed, he willingly received them, even rebuking his disciples for trying to send the Covenant Children away. He said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the Kingdom of Heaven.”
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By saying plainly that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to the little children of those who trust in him, by laying hands on them as he did, and by commending them to God his Father, Jesus clearly teaches that we must not exclude them from his Church. So, in order to be obedient to Christ, we will receive this child into his body, the Church, so that it may become a partaker of the blessings which God has promised to believers through the ministry of the Church.
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In Union with Christ,Wm. M. Austin, III (Trey)Pastor, Coeburn Presbyterian Church (PCA)Coeburn, VA
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"He who fears the LORD has a secure fortress,and for his children it will be a refuge." Proverbs 14:26, NIV