Inconsistent Covenantal or Reformed Baptist? Part 1

This is the first of three parts excerpted and adapted from a letter to my elders.

I submit to you, fellow Reformed brethren, that our doctrine is covenantal. Our practice, however, is baptistic. In our Form for the Administration of Baptism we affirm that "…when we are baptized in the name of the Father, God the Father witnesseth and sealeth unto us that He doth make an eternal covenant of grace with us, and adopts us for His children and heirs…." Furthermore, in the "Exhortation to the Parents" the parents are asked to acknowledge that their children "are sanctified in Christ, and therefore, as members of His Church ought to be baptized."

Likewise, in the Form for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper we are instructed in the manner of remembering our Lord. "Secondly. And that we might firmly believe that we belong to this covenant of grace" (emphasis mine)…we all eat a meal together – a unifying action which recalls the physical, tangible, historical reality of what we accept by faith.

The (in)consistency of our doctrine and practice was brought to the fore when the bread was being passed and my son reached to take a piece. I forcefully whispered, "Son!" He immediately knew what I meant and it cut him to the heart. The joy of my own participation this time was tempered because my son knew that the blood of Jesus had covered his sins, though he was not allowed to celebrate that fact.

Do we really think that by withholding this faith-strengthening food we can raise stronger children? Is it too much of a stretch to say that in baptism (a legal pronouncement) God is bestowing unmerited favor upon (and thereby justifying) the one baptized? This is after all the perspective of our Form for the Administration of Baptism. “And when we are baptized in the name of the Son, the Son sealeth unto us that He doth wash us in His blood from all our sins, incorporating us into the fellowship of His death and resurrection, so that we are freed from all our sins and accounted righteous before God.”