I told Pencilneck I had the works of Calvin at hand, and I even told him where to look to find Calvin's teaching on Baptism. He could have gone to the primary source, which is
readily available on the
Internet if one isn't so intellectually lazy as to pretend he's actually read it himself, instead of relying on tabloid Christian sites like The Berean Call.
Where Pencilneck should have gone, if he wasn't too busy pretending to know what he was talking about, was Book 4, chapter 15, section 10, where John Calvin makes his views on baptismal regeneration explicitly clear:
It is clear how false is the teaching, long propagated by some and still persisted in by others, that through baptism we are released and made exempt from original sin, and from the corruption that descended from Adam into all his posterity; and are restored into that same righteousness and purity of nature which Adam would have obtained if he had remained upright as he was first created. For teachers of this type never understood what original sin, what original righteousness, or what the grace of baptism was.
It's clear from experience that we are not free from the corruption of sin, as the baptismal regenerationists would claim. On the contrary:
Lust never actually dies and is extinguished in men until, freed by death from the body of death, they are completely divested of themselves. Baptism indeed promises to us the drowning of our Pharaoh [Ex. 14:28] and the mortification of our sin, but not so that it no longer exists or gives us trouble, but only that it may not overcome us. For so long as we live cooped up in this prison of our body,19 traces of sin will dwell in us; but if we faithfully hold fast to the promise given us by God in baptism, they shall not dominate or rule. (4.15.11)
In other words, we are not free of sinful influence in this life; but baptism is a symbol of the promise to the believer that sin will be dealt with conclusively, not in this life, but the next life. As Calvin has already said, baptism is the
promise of sanctification; it does not itself accomplish sanctification. And this promise is to believers: for those who are baptized but do not believe, baptism signifies nothing.
He goes on to explain this point from Romans 6 and 7 (4.15.12).
Baptism is also a confirmation of faith:
As far as it is a symbol of our confession, we ought by it to testify that our confidence is in God's mercy, and our purity in forgiveness of sins, which has been procured for us through Jesus Christ; and that we enter God's church in order to live harmoniously with all believers in complete agreement of faith and love. This last point was what Paul meant when he said, "We have all been baptized in one Spirit that we may be one body" [I Cor. 12:13 p.]. (4.15.15)
We have a saying that baptism is an "outward sign of inward faith." According to Calvin, that's not far off the mark.
To close, Calvin says this about the distinction between the symbol of baptism and what it represents:
This analogy or similitude is the surest rule of the sacraments: that we should see spiritual things in physical, as if set before our very eyes. For the Lord was pleased to represent them by such figures--not because such graces are bound and enclosed in the sacrament so as to be conferred upon us by its power, but only because the Lord by this token attests his will toward us, namely, that he is pleased to lavish all these things upon us. And he does not feed our eyes with a mere appearance only, but leads us to the present reality and effectively performs what it symbolizes. (4.15.14)
The Roman Catholic church teaches baptismal regeneration, saying, "Baptism is a bath that purifies, justifies, and sanctifies" (
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1227); and, "It signifies and actually brings about death to sin and entry into the life of the Most Holy Trinity through configuration to the Paschal mystery of Christ" (1239); and, "Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament. The Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude" (1257). What John Calvin would tell us, in light of the above citation, is that baptism, the washing of the body, is a visual symbol: a picture of how God washes away our sins and identifies us with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. According to the Romanists, it is baptism
itself that accomplishes these things. Calvin would correctly say that by saying those things are "bound and enclosed" within the sacrament, they have confused the symbol and the thing it signifies.
And that's what Pencilneck
could have told us, if he hadn't just been
pretending to know what Calvin believed about baptism.
