In my catechism classes, whenever I would come to the discussion of Lord’s Day 27 of the Heidelberg Catechism, a certain statement required special explanation. In defence of infant baptism, the Catechism reasons firstly that children belong to God’s covenant and to his church just as much as adults do. Small children are entitled to baptism because they are members of the church. The first question of the classic form for baptism, ¹ therefore, says that our children should be baptized as members of Christ’s church.

So far, everything was clear to my catechism students. But it started to get more difficult as we read on in answer 74 of the Catechism. If little children are baptized precisely because they are already members of the church, how can the Heidelberg Catechism say that they need to be grafted into the Christian church by baptism? Doesn’t our confession contradict itself here? Both statements can’t be true, right? Or, if both are true, then what does the Catechism mean with this “ingrafting”? What exactly does it mean? That is the question that will be addressed in this chapter, also because I have the impression that it is not only the catechism student who will find that this part of the Catechism requires some explanation.

In Calvin’s Footsteps⤒🔗

In what answer 74 says about the baptism of our little ones, we can clearly hear John Calvin’s voice echoing. Among the Reformers of the sixteenth century, it is especially the Reformer of Geneva who pays attention to baptism as being ingrafted into the Christian church. The ecclesiological aspect of baptism is put front and centre by him. When Calvin starts to deal with baptism in his Institutes, he begins with a remarkable definition: “Baptism is the initiatory sign by which we are admitted to the fellowship of the Church, that being ingrafted into Christ we may be accounted children of God” (Inst. IV.15.1).

For the Reformer it was obvious that God’s covenant also includes the children of the believers. The words “you and your offspring” (Gen. 17:7) still determine the structure of the covenant and also apply to us and to our children. But although Calvin understands children to be included in God’s covenant and his church, this does not prevent him from speaking about their baptism as access to and admission into the church. He writes: “If the kingdom of heaven is theirs, why should they be denied the sign by which access, as it were, is opened to the Church, that being admitted into it they may be enrolled among the heirs of the heavenly kingdom?” (Inst. IV.16.7). Elsewhere he talks about baptism as “a kind of entrance, and as it were initiation into the Church, by which we are ranked among the people of God” (Inst. IV.16.30).

What Calvin means, becomes evident in his writings against Joachim Westphal, who considered it foolish to say that children who already belong to the church are ingrafted into the Christian church by baptism. To this Calvin responded: “I maintain that in one sense people are grafted into the church, even though in another sense they have already been ingrafted. But because baptism is a solemn acknowledgment whereby God leads his children into the possession of life, a true, efficacious seal of the promise, a pledge of the sacred union with Christ, it is rightly called an entrance and a reception into the church.”²

You will notice that Calvin expresses himself here with caution. He distinguishes between “one sense” and “another sense.” The Reformer writes in this way because on the one hand he wants to fully recognize children as members of God’s covenant and his church, whilst on the other hand honouring their baptism as a special moment. What makes it special is “the solemn admission into God’s church,” ³ the “solemn acknowledgment,” the assurance that God receives us into his family, the “initiatory sign by which we are admitted to the fellowship of the Church.”

Sign of Admission←⤒🔗

When our Catechism says that the children are grafted into the Christian church by baptism, we must understand this in light of what we saw with Calvin. The intent of our confession immediately becomes clearer when we add the word “publicly” before the word “grafted.” Infants, who are already members of the church, are publicly grafted into the church by their baptism, publicly baptized “into” and received in the church.

That it should be understood in this “Calvin-like” way is shown by one of the oldest commentaries on the Heidelberg Catechism. In dealing with answer 74, this commentary calls baptism “a public acceptance into the church” and the sacrament “of the entrance into the church.” Children who are already members of the church by virtue of God’s covenant, receive in baptism their “diploma” of membership, and are accepted as members of God’s household by the other members.

It is the LORD who gives this “entrée” to the little ones. At the same time, he acts here by means of his church. The church is not passive when someone is baptized in its midst, but rather very active! It accepts as its child the person whom God accepts as his child. The church incorporates into its community those whom God counts among his people.

In former times, Reformed people would sometimes speak of “adoption as a member.” With this they referred to the public confession of faith, whereby young people were officially accepted as members of the church. But such language is problematic. The “adoption as a member” does not happen with public confession of faith, but already occurs at baptism! Then the person is publicly grafted into the church and solemnly received by the church into its midst.

One of the arguments for baptism to be administered in the meeting of the church has always been that the child who is baptized must be fully seen as a child of the church and that the church must understand its responsibility for this child. The baptized person is not only “this your child” (God’s child), but also “this her child” (a child of the church). “In baptism the church receives the child on its lap and takes the child into its midst.”⁴

This implies that prayer, attention and care for the children are to be high on the agenda of the church members. An old reformational form of baptism aptly urges the church: “Because these children are baptized into the fellowship of Christ today, I pray that through Jesus Christ you will acknowledge and regard them as members of our Lord and as our fellow members, and that everyone, in so far as he has the abilities through Christ, will help to ensure that these children are brought up before the Lord and that they are helped by everyone with everything that is good for body and soul, unto the praise of Christ.”⁵

Belonging to God’s Covenant←⤒🔗

In answer 74 the Heidelberg Catechism powerfully addresses the error of the Anabaptists. They promoted the ideal of a “holy church.” For this reason, they set the bar high: only those who showed themselves to be born-again Christians belonged to God’s covenant and church. Out of this view of the church there naturally arose problems regarding the position of small children. They were not seen as part of the church, but neither as part of the world, neither among the sheep nor among the goats. They formed a unique middle group to whom baptism could definitely not be administered. After all, baptism was seen as the seal on the personal choice of faith. If the old covenant contained a promise for “you and your offspring,” the new covenant was determined by one’s personal choice for God and his covenant.

Over against this our Catechism defends the position that children must be grafted into the Christian church by baptism. They are entitled to this public reception into God’s church. The first argument that our confession presents in answer 74 is: infants belong to God’s covenant and church, just as much as adults do. I briefly pointed out the Anabaptist view of the new covenant. It is precisely in their doctrine of the covenant where a fundamental error lay. They contrasted the new covenant with the old, thinking that the covenant the Lord had made with Abraham had become obsolete with the coming of Christ.

Against this error, the Reformers put forth the unity between the old and new covenant. There is no essential break. On the contrary, through the work of Christ and in fellowship with him, we share in the promises that were made to Abraham (Gal. 3:16). The line of the covenant runs from us to Abraham, through Christ. In this, the structure of the covenant with Abraham is maintained: it applies to “you and your offspring” (Gen. 17: 8). As was preached by Peter on the day of Pentecost: “For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2:39).

“Over against those who wanted to demand a direct scriptural proof in the sense of a Bible text, in which infant baptism was given as a divine command, they (the Reformers) have pointed out with great courage the injustice of this demand, because they countered this demand with the question of where in the New Testament this fundamental relationship in the covenant had been made obsolete.”⁶

Without exaggeration we can say that the “you and your offspring” was put forward by the Reformers in their struggle with the Anabaptists to defend the position of infants as heirs of God’s covenant and members of his church. And still this is the great argument as to why young children must be grafted into the Christian church by baptism. God chose to establish his covenant with Abraham and his descendants. He gave also to children a place in his covenant and church. We honour this pleasure of our God when we, at the baptismal font, publicly receive a child into the church!

Sanctified in Christ←⤒🔗

In the classic form for baptism, the first question tells parents that our children are sanctified in Christ and should therefore be baptized as members of his church. The wording here differs from what we find in the Heidelberg Catechism. The form points to the sanctification of these children and uses it to motivate their baptism.

In the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, up until the days of the Liberation (1944), there has been much ado about the interpretation of the word “sanctified.” Does this refer to an “inner holiness” (being born again), or is it about an “external holiness” (a belonging to the covenant)?

Already in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries this issue was fiercely debated by theologians. Professor Johannes à Marck of Groningen, for example, advocated the latter, while Professor Gijsbertus Voetius of Utrecht advocated the first position. The struggle for the right interpretation received a not insignificant impulse in what was later defended by Abraham Kuyper.

For Kuyper there was no doubt: the basis for infant baptism lies in the work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of our little ones. “Holy Baptism is a divine mark on the divine work.” The children may be brought to the baptismal font on the basis of the inner work of grace of God, which the church assumes to be present.” For Kuyper, “being sanctified in Christ” therefore also implies “that the implantation of the hidden seed of the new life” has already taken place.⁷

Kuyper’s position and the support he received called for powerful reactions from those who promoted the long-standing Reformed teaching, as it had often resonated in the churches of the Separation (from 1834 onwards). Baptism does not take place on the basis of a presupposed inner change, but on the basis of God’s promise and command. The sanctification that the first baptism question speaks of, refers to the fact that the children belong to God’s covenant and church.

The General Synod of Utrecht 1905 made a declaration that was intended to establish peace, but unfortunately it did not excel in clarity and was susceptible to different interpretations.

A Kuyperian interpretation later became the doctrine of the Reformed Churches, when the Synod of Sneek-Utrecht of 1942 stated that “the seed of the covenant by virtue of the promise of God is to be regarded as regenerated and sanctified in Christ, until when they grow up the contrary appears in their walk or doctrine.” The extent to which the view of Kuyper et al was canonized by the synod, can be seen from the later explanation that the synod added to its decision. “Being sanctified in Christ” was equated with “being born again,” being innerly renewed. It was this statement (and especially its binding force) that led to the Liberation in 1944.

There is, however, no reason to understand the phrase “sanctified in Christ” in the first baptism question in the way that Kuyper and the synod did. In the first baptism question, the original composer of the form, Petrus Dathenus, unmistakably followed in the footsteps of the sources he drew from: the forms of à Lasco and Micron, ministers in the Reformed refugee churches of the sixteenth century.

When we compare Dathenus’s first baptism question with the questions of his sources, then being “sanctified in Christ” has the same meaning as “comprehended in the divine covenant, for Christ’s sake.” After all, the compilers of the liturgies of the Reformed churches proceeded from the concept of the covenant.

The words “sanctified in Christ” in the first baptism question are actually explained by the form itself when it continues with the words “as members of his church” and when it has already stated earlier that the children, “are…without their knowledge, received into grace in Christ.”

It is not about an “inner working of the Spirit” but about belonging to God and his covenant. It is about the holiness of the children as Paul refers to it in 1 Corinthians 7:14. This text is mentioned by Dathenus in the margins of his form. The Canons of Dordt articulate it very well when they state, “the children of believers are holy, not by nature but by virtue of the gracious covenant in which they together with their parents are included” (I,17). The children of the church belong among the people whom the Lord has called, are accepted as his children, and possess his promises.

That is their “holiness.” Therefore, they are holy. That privilege cannot be separated from the grace that God shows us in Christ (cf. Eph.1:6).

J.G. Woelderink expresses well what it means to be “sanctified in Christ”: “Therefore, it is not us who separate our children from the children of unbelievers, but God who does this by virtue of his covenant faithfulness, and this separation, by which God distinguishes the seed of the church from the children of the unbelievers and receives them among his people and into his household, is the sanctification with which they are sanctified. It is an act of special mercy that arises from his grace in Christ Jesus and therefore cannot be thought of without and outside of Christ, just as also the church does not exist without and outside of Christ. Therefore ‘sanctified in Christ Jesus’ or, as the form says elsewhere: ‘received into grace in Christ’.”
 

Current Relevance←⤒🔗

What the church confesses about the position of the infants of believers has received new relevance in our days because of the strong influence of Baptist ideas. Although historically there is not a direct line from the sixteenth-century Anabaptists to the modern Baptist movement (the first Baptist church was founded in England in the 17^th century), the two movements do share important views. Like the Anabaptists, Baptists also see baptism as baptism of faith, deny the unity and the permanent structure of the covenant, and do not acknowledge that children belong to God’s church by virtue of the covenant.

Now that in our churches, for more and more people unfortunately, infant baptism is not a self-evident matter, it is important to hear how the church has spoken from Scripture regarding the position of children. Their position clearly shows that the Lord has entered our lives first, that he has searched for us before we even asked for him! The form proclaims this in a concise manner by saying that our children are received into grace in Christ without their knowledge. It is what the poet of Psalm 71 confesses, “From birth I have relied on you; you brought me forth from my mother's womb.”

Therefore, anyone who rejects infant baptism seriously fails to recognize the grace of our God who has made our children into his children and heirs. Such a person also fails to acknowledge the rights that these children have received through grace. They belong to God’s holy people and possess the glorious promises as much as the adults do!

I focused your attention on baptism as the ingrafting into the Christian church. I do not think that it is superfluous to accentuate this ecclesiological aspect of baptism for today. We live in a time when the individual’s ties to larger entities are weakening. One notices it in the political arena: the number of “drifting” voters is on the increase. And matters are not very different when it comes to the church. There is a strong tendency toward individualism: people live their own lives and make their own choices. Young people have little ties to the church community of which they are members, and easily choose another church.

In times like these it is important to speak of baptism as ingrafting into the church. As a child of God, you are not on your own. From a young age you have been ingrafted into God’s church, baptized “into” her. The baptism water tied you not only to God, but also to the church! The Lord has already given you a place among brothers and sisters—before you were even aware of it. He has given them to you and you to them. This testifies of his gracious care, but at the same time it brings along a responsibility that cannot lightly be shunned.

Renewed attention for what happens at the baptismal font to us as a church can, under God’s blessing, contribute to combating modern individualism!

For Further Discussion←⤒🔗

1. Did you learn something new from this chapter about being ingrafted into the church?

2. What does it mean for you to know that the church carries responsibility for a baptized child?

3. What do you think of the addition to the latest forms of baptism, in which the church is addressed separately and her responsibility is pointed out?

4. Do you know of people who have difficulties with infant baptism? What light does the argumentation in this chapter throw on the classic reformed custom of infant baptism?

5. Discuss with each other why little children have already been sanctified in Christ.

6. Can you think of other reasons why many people nowadays no longer think of the covenant, baptism and the church as things that are self-evident? How do you yourself think about these things?