Consensus Tigurinus and a Baptismal Reproachment Between ...



Consensus Tigurinus and a Baptismal Rapprochement

Between Southern Baptists and Churches of Christ

John Mark Hicks

Lipscomb University

Just as Zurich (“Zwinglianism”) and Geneva (“Calvinianism”) found sacramental common ground in the Consensus Tigurinus, this paper explores whether such a rapprochement is possible between Southern Baptists and Churches of Christ who, in many ways, are the credobaptistic heirs of Zurich and Geneva. Since there is presently a renewed discussion among Southern Baptists and British Baptists concerning baptismal “sacramentalism” and there is also a new openness among Churches of Christ toward a more historic Calvinian understanding of baptism as a means of grace, there is hope for some kind of “rapprochement” between Southern Baptists and Churches of Christ in the United States.[1] With historical perspective and theological reflection Churches of Christ and Southern Baptists are potentially on the verge of a Consensus Americanus.

Consensus Tigurinus: Zurich and Geneva

In September 1544 Luther renewed the old conflict between Lutherans and Zwinglians with his Brief Confession of the Holy Sacrament Against Schwenckfeld and the Swiss. This initiated a flurry of correspondence among the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland as well as several responses to Luther. Given Emperor Charles V’s control of southern Germany by the end of 1546, Jean Calvin attempted to mediate a discussion. Though he believed Luther had overstepped, he cautioned the Zurichers to remember Luther’s great service to the truth. This new flurry, however, generated discussions and shared materials between Calvin and Heinrich Bullinger as Calvin, at the direction of the Geneva Council, traveled throughout Protestant Switzerland encouraging solidarity. Specifically, in 1547, Bullinger shared with Calvin a manuscript on the Eucharist (later published in 1551). Though disagreeing at first, their conversations ultimately led to the Consensus Tigurinus.

Calvin drafted the document in late 1548 but was revised when Calvin, William Farel (the first Reformer of Geneva) and Bullinger met in Zurich during May of 1549. Geneva and Zurich negotiated the document over several months in 1549. The final Latin text was published in February 1551 (which Calvin translated into French and Bullinger into German).[2] Not all Zwinglians received the document as the church at Berne opposed it during Calvin’s lifetime. But Melanchthon, upon considering the statement, promised that he would no longer attack the Swiss but it became the occasion for another round of sacramental wars between the Swiss and the Germans through the writings of the conservative Lutheran Joachim Westphal.[3]

Zwingli (Zurich)

The Zurich Reformer Huldreich Zwingli assumed a radical stance toward sacramentalism as he rejected any idea that the sacraments could function instrumentally in the distribution of divine grace or blessing. “External things are nothing,” Zwingli writes. “They avail nothing for salvation.”[4] Externals are material objects that cannot effect spiritual blessings. Only faith, as an internal spiritual experience, can function as an instrument of grace. By faith one already possesses what baptism symbolizes. "The one necessary thing which saves those of us who hear the Gospel,” according to Zwingli, “is faith."[5] And Christ “did not connect salvation with baptism: it is always by faith alone.”[6]

Baptism, for Zwingli, is an ecclesial event for the benefit of “fellow-believers” and not so much “for a supposed effect in those who receive it.”[7] Baptism is not primarily an assurance or seal of faith since if one’s faith is so insufficient as to need a sign, then “it is not faith.”[8] Rather, it is a sign for other believers, a pledge of commitment. “Baptism is an initiatory sign or pledge,” Zwingli writes, “with which we bind ourselves to God, testifying the same to our neighbor by means of the external sign.”[9] Baptism is a public act of allegiance, which signifies that recipients both belong to the church and the church recognizes them as members. Zwingli’s baptismal theology has an anthropocentric impulse. Instead of viewing baptism as God’s faith-strengthening pledge to the believer much less a means of grace, he primarily described it as the Christian’s pledge to his fellow believers.

Calvin (Geneva)

Calvin does not locate the chief purpose of baptism in its public profession. On the contrary, he believes its primary significance is its correlation to saving faith. In other words, baptism is more about what God does in relation to our faith than it about what we do in our profession of faith. Much of what Calvin writes about the sacraments in his Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559) is directed against those who would reduce the sacraments to some kind of anthropocentrism or mere public human profession. “We do not tolerate,” he writes, “that what is secondary in the sacraments be regarded by them as the first and even the only point. Now, the first point is that the sacraments should serve our faith before God; after this, that they should attest our confession before men” (Institutes, 4.14.13).[10]

Calvin understood baptism as an effective sign through which God works efficaciously by the power of the Spirit through faith. The sign and the thing signified, baptism and forgiveness, have a real, spiritual connection through faith and the Spirit. Calvin positions himself between two extremes. On the one hand, we must not think that “such graces are included and bound in the sacrament, so as to be conferred by its efficacy;” but on the other hand, “nor does he merely feed our eyes with bare show,” but rather God “leads us to the actual object, and effectually performs what he figures” (Institutes, 4.15.14). The sign conveys the “substance and reality, inasmuch as God works by external means” but only “insofar as we receive [it] in faith” (Institutes, 4.15.1). “God, therefore, truly performs whatever he promises and figures by signs” (Institutes, 4.14.17).

Calvin believes baptism is a genuine means of grace that is effective through faith and the internal working of the Spirit. Concerning the sacraments in general, Calvin wrote: “God…performs by the secret virtue of his Spirit that which he figures by external signs, and, accordingly, that on the part of God himself, not empty signs are set before us, but the reality and efficacy at the same time conjoined with them.”[11]

Theology of the Confession[12]

The Consensus Tigurinus was not all that either side desired.[13] The Confession, as Gerrish notes, “liberally employed” some of the “favorite Zwinglian terminology,” but nevertheless “softly” introduced some “non-Zwinglian ideas.” For example, while the document makes clear that the sacraments do not “confer grace” (conferunt gratiam) as if they have any “sacral efficacy” within themselves (Article XVII), it also states that this does not “denude the sacraments” but rather reserves this efficacy to the Spirit of God who uses the sacraments “in freedom (ubi visum est!) as His instruments (Article XIII).”[14]

Generally, the Consensus united the Protestant Swiss Cantons in their sacramental theology and offered a mediating position between Zwingli and Luther which was ultimately Calvin’s own position. In particular, the sacraments, according to the Consensus, offer (praestat) what the signs symbolize (Article VIII), the reality is not separated from the sign (Article IX), and the signs are themselves instruments of divine grace (Article XIII). The Consensus bridged a gap between Zwingli and Luther by stressing the instrumentality of the signs by the power of the Spirit. The signs effect nothing by themselves (Article XII) but “they are indeed instruments by which God acts efficaciously when he pleases” while at the same time “salvation” is “ascribed” to God “alone” (Article XIII) because “it is God who alone acts by his Spirit” (Article XII).

In 1554 Calvin offered an exposition of the Consensus as part of his polemical exchanges with Westphal.[15] The Sacraments, he explained, “are helps and means (adminicula et media) by which we are either ingrafted [sic] into the body of Christ, or being ingrafted, are drawn closer and closer until he makes us altogether one with himself in the heavenly life.” They are, he continued, “neither empty figures nor mere external badges of piety, but seals of the divine promises, testimonies of spiritual grace to cherish and confirm faith, and, on the other, that they are instruments by which God acts effectually in his elect….the signs are not devoid of the things, as God conjoins the effectual working of his Spirit with them.”[16] Thus, “God uses their instrumentality, and yet in such manner that he neither infuses his virtue into them, nor derogates in any respect from the efficacy of his Spirit” which “power” is “exerted in them, and make[s] them available for the salvation of God’s elect.”[17]

Though Calvin recognized that Cornelius had received the Spirit prior to baptism, this does not entail that we “lay aside the use of signs, and be contented with secret inspirations. Although the Lord occasionally, to prove that his virtue is not tied to any means, performs without sign what he represents by sign,” nevertheless “Christ truly performs what he figures” and the sacraments are “means and instruments of his secret grace.” Consequently, the sacraments are not “only badges of all the blessings God once exhibited to us in Christ,” but “the efficacy of the Spirit is conjoined with their outward representation, lest they should be empty pictures.”[18]

Consensus Americanus: Churches of Christ and Southern Baptists?

1812 was a significant year for both Churches of Christ and American Baptists. In that same year Alexander Campbell, Adoniram Judson and Luther Rice were immersed upon their profession of faith in Jesus and embraced credobaptism as biblical theology. Their heirs, however, engaged in hostile and sometimes bitter disputes over the design of baptism.[19] Generally speaking, conservative Stone-Campbell adherents—particularly among 20th century Churches of Christ—moved away from Campbell’s own Calvinian understanding of baptism as a “means of grace” to a positivistic watershed line between heaven and hell[20] and conservative Baptists—particularly Southern Baptists—embraced a Zwinglian understanding of sacramental theology. However, there are signs that there are converging interests and theology among leaders within Churches of Christ and Southern Baptists.

Southern Baptists

Early British Baptist theology tended to follow Calvin, while Continental Anabaptist theology tended to follow Zwingli. Eighteenth and nineteenth century revivalism watered down British sacramentalism except among the Scotch Baptists.[21] American Baptists, influenced by the Great Awakenings and revivalistic conversion measures, rejected any kind of baptismal efficacy. Charles G. Finney, as the most influential leader of 19th century revivalism, viewed the anxious seat, according to Thornbury, “as a means of grace, a test of piety.”[22] Baptism, according to Finney’s own words, “held the same place the anxious seat does now: a public manifestation of determination to be a Christian.”[23] Billy Sunday popularized “coming down the aisle” during the invitation song as a conversion ritual and the decision card assured respondees that “by this act of coming forward…you are now a child of God.”[24] The altar call or sinner’s prayer became, as Hulse calls it, the “new evangelical sacrament” or as Leonard deemed it “the sacrament of walking the aisle.”[25] Baptism was thereby supplanted and reduced to a mere human testimony as an appendage to the conversion narrative. Baptism became what it was for Zwingli, that is, a mere ecclesial event without soteriological significance.

The mid-twentieth century works of Alec Gilmore, Neville Clark, R. E. O. White, and G. R. Beasley-Murray revived the earlier sacramental understanding of baptism among British Baptists.[26] Between 1973 and 1977 the Baptist World Alliance and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches met to discuss their theological perspectives. They issued a document entitled “Report of Theological Conversations.”[27] The report reflects a Calvinian understanding of baptism’s meaning. Both Alliances affirm that baptism is an “act of God and act of man.” Baptism is described as “a powerful sign and effective means of grace” because “in baptism administered by water, God himself, by his Spirit, is acting.” By virtue of the Spirit baptism is “an effective instrument of grace, actually imparting what it promises: the forgiveness of sins, union with Christ in his death and resurrection, regeneration, elevation to the status of sonship, membership in the church, the body of Christ, new life in the Spirit, the earnest of the resurrection of the body. The New Testament looks upon the operation of the Spirit in baptism as the application of the fullness of saving grace.”

The impact of this revival is particularly evident among contemporary British Baptists. Since 1999 a large number of monographs and journal articles have appeared in British publications that have argued for baptismal sacramentalism, that is, baptism as the “evangelical sacrament” that is a normative part of the conversion narrative.[28] This movement has embraced a Calvinian sacramental theology.

There are a growing number of Southern Baptists who are moving in this direction as well though they are reticent about sacramental language.[29] Their linguistic hesitation is rooted in some of the same qualms and perceived baggage that is also current among historic and contemporary Churches of Christ. Nevertheless, there is a recognition that Baptist practice has de-emphasized baptism. Rainbow offers analysis:[30]

A real devaluation of baptism takes place when Baptists, overresponding to the perceived overvaluation of baptism in the paedobaptists churches (which is often the fruit of misunderstanding on the part of Baptists), begin to talk about baptism as if it were a marginal, optional, not-very-significant thing. What is really important, we often hear in Baptist churches, is what happens in the heart, in the conversion experience as it is transacted between God and the soul. Baptism is ‘just’ a symbol—like a wedding ring, nice but dispensable, a mere external ceremony…So baptism, instead of being a cataclysmic gateway from death to life, becomes merely the first of many acts of discipleship. The sense of drama is gone, the sense of baptism having some real contact with salvation is gone, and baptism has been reduced to an act of sheer obedience. The real drama is elsewhere, in the private enclave of the heart….[baptism] is more than a sign.

This movement by Southern Baptists has opened up the possibility of some kind of “rapprochement” between the two traditions.[31]

Churches of Christ

The Stone-Campbell Movement emerged from Scottish Presbyterian and Baptist roots. Thomas Campbell (1763-1854) and his son Alexander Campbell (1788-1866), in particular, were Scotch Presbyterians who were strongly influenced by Scotch Baptists. They were familiar with their leaders, particularly Archibald McLean and the Haldane brothers (James and Robert). These influences came to the forefront when the Campbells moved from Presbyterian to Baptists circles in conjunction with their rejection of the Puritan conversion narrative.

In the wake of Walter Scott’s successful revivalistic substitution of the mourner’s bench with immersion in 1827,[32] Campbell began a series of essays entitled the “Restoration of the Ancient Gospel.”[33] In this series Campbell begins to use the language of means or instrumentality: “forgiveness is through immersion”[34] or baptism is “a certain act by, or in which their sins are forgiven.”[35] Baptism is a “medium through which the forgiveness of sins is imparted.”[36] Campbell is quite adamant about this point: “I do earnestly contend that God, through the blood of Christ, forgives our sins through immersion—through the very act, and in the very instant.”[37] Campbell had moved well beyond Zwinglianism and embraced a high Calvinian understanding of the instrumentality of baptism as a means of grace.

This stance was increasingly clarified as Campbell engaged his critics. For example, the Virginia Baptist Andrew Broaddus believed that Campbell ascribed to external water what belonged only to the instrumentality of faith. It is a “living faith (not immersion nor any outward or bodily act)…by which we pass from a state of condemnation, into a state of favor and acceptance with God.” For Broaddus, baptism functions as a “declarative justification” in that it is an “outward sign and declaration that the believer has experienced” the blessing of remission of sins. Only faith functions instrumentally.[38] But Campbell complained that Broaddus reduced baptism to a “mere external bodily act” or a simple “mutual pledge” by which people are received into the visible church. Broaddus’s problem is that he “gives to baptism no instrumentality at all in the work of salvation.”[39] In other words, Broaddus was Zwinglian and Campbell was Calvinian. Whereas for Broaddus the “exercise of faith” is wholly “internal” and a matter of the heart alone, Campbell believed that faith is exercised through “trusting in Christ, coming to him and receiving him” in the act of immersion.[40]

Alexander Campbell’s baptismal theology articulated an instrumental understanding of baptismal grace but at the same time valued character more than ritual and mercy more than sacrifice. A living faith that exhibited a transformed character was more important than the full enjoyment of assurance in baptism.[41] However, few in mid-twentieth century Churches of Christ believed that faith without baptism was transformative. Baptism was regarded more like a line in the sand or, to mix the metaphor, a watershed moment. Baptismal water became an absolute distinction between the lost and the saved. James A. Harding (1848-1922), a influential evangelist and educator among Churches of Christ, illustrates the significance of this distinction.

Harding, among others,[42] classified baptism as a “positive” ordinance in conformity to “positive law” which is different from “moral law.”[43] A “positive” law is a command whose only basis of obligation is the fact that God commanded it while a “moral” law is rooted in the moral character of God. Moral law is obligatory in its own right, but positive laws are obligatory solely by the explicit command of God. For example, the command “You shall not commit adultery” is rooted in God’s own sense of faithfulness, but the command “Do not eat of that tree” is a test of strict obedience. Moral obligations have crutches. There are inducements, inclinations, and natural propensities. But a positive law is an absolute test of loyalty. The significance of the positive command, then, is that it is unencumbered by the crutches of moral obligations and it gives a clear indication of the loyalty of the person involved.

Harding stressed this hard-line as engaged in a lengthy give-and-take on the question of the unimmersed in the1883 Gospel Advocate. Harding offered no biblical hope to the unimmersed. “That these people,” he wrote, “are not in the kingdom is evident to us.”[44] Even though “salvation is of grace, and it is also through faith,” it is also equally clear that “God has made it dependent upon conditions with which man must comply; and no man, who does not comply with these conditions, has a Scriptural reason for believing that he has been, or ever will be saved.”[45] Harding believed that the clarity of this command was unavoidable. “If a man does not understand the baptismal question, in this country,” he argued, “it is because he will not, not because he cannot understand. It is not the Lord’s fault; he made the matter plain enough.”[46] As a clear positive command, it demands obedience rather than debating. Ignorance is no excuse.

By the early twentieth century a consensus emerged in Churches of Christ that offered little, if any, hope of salvation to the pious unimmersed.

Theological Convergence

“Convergence”[47] is possible within the paradigm shift currently evidenced among some leaders of Churches of Christ and some Southern Baptists. I have identified four points that are significant for this converging baptismal theology.

First, baptism is part of the New Testament conversion narrative. It is neither an appendage to conversion nor merely the first act of ecclesial discipleship. It is part of the process of becoming a Christian in the biblical text. While this is standard teaching among Churches of Christ, it is increasingly recognized as a fundamental theological insight among Baptists. Robert Stein’s 1998 article in the first issue of the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology, entitled “Baptism and Becoming a Christian in the New Testament,” initiated this discussion among Southern Baptists.[48] Broadman & Holman’s 2006 publication entitled Believer’s Baptism is replete with affirmations of this thesis. Stein, for example, concludes his essay with the statement that “water-baptism ‘in/into the name of Jesus/Lord Jesus/Jesus Christ’ is understood as an essential part of becoming a Christian.”[49] Both Stein and Schreiner consistently refer to the biblical use of “synecdoche” where “faith,” “repentance,” and “baptism” can stand for the whole conversion process.[50] Caneday boldly states: “Baptism is an indispensable aspect of conversion along with at least four other elements: repentance, faith, confession, and regeneration.”[51] Baptism, he concludes, is part of the “normal conversion pattern.”[52]

Second, Calvinian baptismal theology correctly identifies the soteriological significance of baptism as a means of grace. While Churches of Christ have not generally used the sacramental language of “means of grace,” that baptism is an appointed act by which believers are forgiven of their sins is typical teaching. Alexander Campbell himself is best understood as advocating a Calvinian credobaptistic sacramental theology.[53] British Baptists and the Baptist World Alliance have clearly embraced this kind of sacramentalism in their baptismal theology. In the 1990s some American Baptists began to use this language. James McClendon described baptism as an “effectual sign” which is a divine “yes” to humanity’s cry for salvation; baptism is “an act of God.”[54] Many regard McClendon may as “left-wing,” but even some “right-wing” baptists, such as Wayne Grudem, describe baptism as “means of grace” and reject those who argue that baptism is “merely symbolic” and “that the Holy Spirit does not work through it.”[55] Another example from the recent Broadman & Holman publication is Caneday who heads his article’s conclusion with the title “Baptism as Means of Grace” and endorses Alexander Campbell’s own distinction between baptism as instrumental cause distinct from efficient cause.[56] Baptism is not merely the thing signified. Rather, God actually effects what baptism symbolizes. Baptism in water is a performative sign (it accomplishes what it symbolizes by the work of the Spirit) through which God has chosen to mediate his grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Third, baptism serves faith and is subordinate to its soteriological function. This is a major premise in Calvin’s sacramental theology: “sacraments should serve our faith before God” (Institutes, 4.14.13). Though baptism was ordinarily the means by which God acted to save, according to Calvin, baptism is not absolutely necessary to salvation. Indeed, faith is more important than baptism, and baptism is an “inferior mean” [sic] though it is a confirmation of forgiveness through faith.[57] He rejects the idea that “all are lost who happen not to be dipped in water” and thus rejects the rationale for “emergency baptisms” (Institutes, 4.15.20). In other words, baptism is God’s ordinary means of grace but not an absolute one. Faith is the more fundamental means. While this is not commonly heard among members of Churches of Christ, this was also Alexander Campbell’s perspective. Campbell compares one who is unimmersed to an imperfect Christian. He cannot bring himself to deny that any person who “is acting up to the full measure of his knowledge,” and has not been “negligent, according to his opportunities, to ascertain the will of his Master” is a Christian. He feels that if he were to paganize all the unimmersed, he would be “a pure sectarian, a Pharisee among Christians.” Therefore, he cannot regard all the unimmersed as "aliens from Christ and the well-grounded hope of heaven."[58] The God who has “always enjoined upon man ‘mercy, rather than sacrifice’” has “never demanded” baptism “as [an] indispensable condition of salvation.”[59] Campbell never made immersion a sine qua non of eternal salvation. However, Campbell felt—even in his own day—that some had “given to baptism an undue eminence—a sort of pardon-procuring, rather than a pardon-certifying and enjoying efficacy.”[60] Unfortunately, it seems that such fears were fully realized in the 20th century among Churches of Christ.

Fourth, salvation is a process of transformation into the image of Christ which both gives baptism its theological significance and limits its soteriological importance. Whereas some within Churches of Christ saw the “transformed” (pious) unimmersed as people who are diseased with an unbelieving heart,[61] Campbell did not think their non-immersion a hindrance to recognizing their “inward” baptism. “Sir,” he asks, “will not his uncircumcision, or unbaptism, be counted to him for baptism?”[62] The transformation of the character is more important than a single misunderstood command of God. Campbell refused to “make any one duty the standard of Christian state or character, not even immersion into the name of the father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” He would not make baptism the single or most significant identifying marker of Christianity—he would “not substitute obedience to one commandment, for universal or even for general obedience.”[63] Transformation, then, was more important than baptism itself and this is precisely because baptism served the goal of transformation and was not itself the goal. Campbell led believers down in the river to experience the assurance of God’s gracious forgiveness as part of God’s transforming work, but some of his theological descendents went down in the river to draw a line in the sand. They turned baptism into a legal technicality rather than a divine work of transforming assurance.

I believe Churches of Christ and Southern Baptists can move closer to each other if, on the one hand, those within Churches of Christ adopt a more self-conscious Calvinian baptismal theology that recognizes the primacy of faith and the goal of transformation and, on the other hand, Baptists adopt a more Calvinian baptismal theology that recognizes baptism as a means of grace within the conversion narrative. Pragmatically, Churches of Christ could cease questioning or doubting the eternal destiny of unimmersed believers and recognize them as pilgrims in the process of transformation on the same journey as themselves, and Baptists could invite believers to baptism as part of their conversion experience and invite seekers to baptism as the sinner’s prayer itself.

Conclusion

Traditions run to extremes in the profession and practice of baptismal theologies. Churches of Christ have often turned baptism into a technical line in the sand that divides the lost and the saved and thus, at times, exalted baptism above transformation. Baptists have, at times, devalued the soteriological significance of baptism and separated it from the conversion narrative.

Historically, we stand in an analogous situation as Calvin and Bullinger. The Swiss Reformation was divided between Zwinglian and Calvinian sacramental theology. The Zwinglians feared that the Calvinians were too Lutheran and the Calvinians feared that the Zwinglians devalued the sacraments. Geneva and Zurich were divided. The ministers of the two cities reached an historic agreement in the Consensus Tigurinus. Zwinglians and Calvinists were reconciled in such a way that the Reformed tradition has sustained a significant consensus throughout its history.

. I am convinced that the difference between Southern Baptists and Churches of Christ on baptism is the difference between Zwingli and a radicalized sacramentalism. I believe a new consensus is possible with the self-conscious adoption of something akin to a credobaptist Calvinian baptismal theology—which, in my estimation, is a biblical theology. Baptists and Churches of Christ have an opportunity to live in harmony, practice a shared biblical theology of baptism and together promote the kingdom of God for the sake of the world.

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[1] A.B. Caneday, “Baptism in the Stone-Campbell Movement,” in Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ, ed. Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright (Nashville: Broadman & Holmann Academic, 2006), 304; cf. 324-328.

[2] This history is based on Wulfert de Greef, The Writings of John Calvin, Expanded Edition: An Introductory Guide, trans. Lyle D. Bierma (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 172-177

[3] Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom (6th ed; New York: Harper &Brothers, 1919), 1:472-473, available at .

[4] Zwingli, “Of Baptism,” in Zwingli and Bullinger, ed. G. W. Bromiley (LCC; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1953), 130.

[5] Ibid., 137.

[6] Ibid., 136.

[7] Ibid.

[8]Zwingli, “Commentary on True and False Religion,” in The Latin Works of Huldreich Zwingli, ed. C. N. Heller (Philadelphia: Heidelberg Press), 3:184. Jack Cottrell, “Baptism According to the Reformed Tradition,” in Baptism and the Remission of Sins, ed. David W. Fletcher (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1990), 55, translates a passage from Zwingli’s letter to Thomas Wyttenbach, June 15, 1523 in Werke (CR), 8:86, which significantly illustrates this point: “"Therefore it is faith which is required there, which if it is so great, that it has need of no certain point of time or (no certain) place or person or any other thing, by which, through the circumstance itself, it would desire to be made assured and secure, it has no need of baptism. But if he is still a little too simple-minded and unsophisticated, and needs a demonstration, let the believer be washed, so that now he knows that he is cleansed by faith within just as he is by water without."

[9] Zwingli, On Baptism, 148.

[10] Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, LCC 20; ed. John T. McNeill and trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 2:1289. An older translation of the Institutes is available at .

[11] Calvin, “The Best Method of Obtaining Concord, Provided the Truth Be Sought Without Contention,” in Selected Works of John Calvin: Tracts and Letters (Grand Rapids: Baker, reprinted 1983), 2:573, also available at .

[12] Many translations and copies of the Consensus are available. I will use the one available at .

[13] Calvin sent Bucer a copy in June 1549. Bucer was critical of the document because it was too cautious about communion with Christ and did not give Luther’s views due justice. Calvin responded with general agreement but thought that the document nevertheless stressed a point of unity between Zurich and Geneva. Cf. de Greef, p. 175.

[14] B. A. Gerrish, “The Lord’s Supper in the Reformed Confessions,” Theology Today 23 (July 1966) 233.

[15] Jean Calvin, “Mutual Consent as to the Sacraments,” in Calvin’s Tracts, Containing Treatises on the Sacraments, Catechism of the Church of Geneva, Forms of Prayer, and Confessions of Faith, trans. Henry Beveridge (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1849), 2:199-244, available at . Cf. Joseph N. Tylenda, “The Calvin-Westphal Exchange: The Genesis of Calvin’s Treatises Against Westphal,” Calvin Theological Journal 9 (1974) 182-209.

[16] Calvin, “Mutual Consent,” 2:222-225.

[17] Calvin, “Mutual Consent,” 2:229.

[18] Calvin, “Mutual Consent,” 2:236, 238, 227.

[19] See the recent pieces by Jesse C. Fletcher, “The Separation of the Campbells from the Baptists,” Discipliana 63.3 (Fall 2003) 80-92; Douglas A. Foster, “Efforts At Repairing the Breach: Twentieth Century Dialogues of Churches of the Stone-Campbell Movement with Baptists and Presbyterians,” Discipliana 63.4 (Winter 2003) 99-111; John Mark Hicks, “Baptism, Faith and Christian Experience: Baptists and Disciples Part Company,” in Evangelicalism and the Stone-Campbell Movement, ed. by William R. Baker (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2002), 91-124; and Thomas H. Olbricht, “Churches of Christ, Southern Baptist Times Together: The Debates,” available at .

[20] John Mark Hicks and Greg Taylor, Down in the River to Pray: Revisioning Baptism as God’s Transforming Work (Siloam Springs, AR: Leafwood Publishers, 2004), chapter seven.

[21] Stanley K. Fowler, More than a Symbol: The British Baptist Recovery of Baptismal Sacramentalism (Carlislie: Paternoster Press, 2002) and Derek B. Murray, “An Eighteenth Century Baptismal Controversy in Scotland,” 419-429, in Baptism, the New Testament and the Church: Historical and Contemporary Studies in Honour of R. E. O. White, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Anthony R. Cross (JSNT, 171; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999).

[22] John F. Thornbury, God Sent Revival: The Story of Asahel Nettleton and the Second Great Awakening (Greand Rapids: Evangelical Press, 1977), 201.

[23] Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Revival (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1988), 171.

[24] As quoted by William G. McLoughlin, Jr., Modern Revivalism: Charles Grandison Finney to Billy Graham (New York: Ronald Press Co., 1959), 410.

[25] Erroll Hulse, The Great Invitation: Examining the Use of the Invitation System in Evangelism (Welwyn: Evangelical Press, 1986), 89 and Bill Leonard, “Getting Saved in America: Conversion Event in a Pluralistic Culture," Review and Expositor 82 (1985) 121.

[26] Gilmore, ed., Christian Baptism: A Fresh Attempt to Understand the Rite of Baptism in terms of Scripture, History and Theology (London: Lutterworth Press, 1959); Clark, An Approach to the Theology of the Sacraments (London: SCM Press, 1956); White, The Biblical Doctrine of Initiation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960); and Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962).

[27] “Report of the Theological Conversations Sponsored by The World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Baptist World Alliance, 1973-1977” available at .

[28] Anthony R. Cross, “The Evangelical Sacrament: Baptisma Semper Reformandum,” Evangelical Quarterly 80.3 (2008) 195-217. His book Evangelical Sacrament: Baptisma Semper Reformandum will be published by Paternoster in 2010. Cf. Stanley E. Porter and Anthony R. Cross, eds., Baptism, the New Testament and the Church: Historical and Contemporary Studies in Honour of R. E. O. White (JSNT, 171; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999); Anthony R. Cross, Baptism and the Baptists: Theology and Practice in Twentieth-Century Britan (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000); Stanley E. Porter and Anthony R. Cross, eds., Dimensions of Baptism: Biblical and Theological Studies (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002); Stanley K. Fowler, More Than a Symbol: The British Baptist Recovery of Baptismal Sacramentalism (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2002); Anthony R. Cross and Phillip E. Thompson, ed., Baptist Sacramentalism (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2003); Paul S. Fiddes, Tracks and Traces: Baptist Identity in Church and Theology (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2004); John E. Colwell, Promise and Presence: An Exploration of Sacramental Theology (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2005); and Anthony R. Cross and Phillip E. Thompson, ed., Baptist Sacramentalism 2 (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2008).

[29] Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright, Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ (Nashville: Broadman & Holmann Academic, 2006).

[30] Jonathan H. Rainbow, “’Confessor Baptism’: The Baptismal Doctrine of the Early Anabaptists,” in Believer’s Baptism, 205-6

[31] A.B. Caneday, “Baptism in the Stone-Campbell Movement,” in Believer’s Baptism, 304; cf. 324-328.

[32] See Campbell’s recollection of his enthusiastic endorsement of Scott’s preaching in Millennial Harbinger 20 (1849), 48.

[33] Campbell, “Ancient Gospel—No. I,” Christian Baptist 5 (7 January 1828), 128-130; “Ancient Gospel—No. II,” 5 (5 February 1828), 164-168; “Ancient Gospel—No. III,” 5 (3 March 1828), 179-182; “Ancient Gospel—No. IV,” 5 (7 April), 221-223; “Ancient Gospel—No. V,” 5 (5 May 1828), 229-232; “Ancient Gospel—No. VI,” 5 (2 June 1828), 254-257; “Ancient Gospel—No. VII,” 5 (7 July 1828), 276-279; “Ancient Gospel—No. VIII,” 6 (4 August 1828), 14-17; “Ancient Gospel—No. IX,” 6 (6 October 1828), 72-74; and “Ancient Gospel—No. X,” 6 (3 November 1828), 97-100.

[34] Campbell, “No. II,” 166.

[35] Campbell, “No. V,” 232.

[36] Campbell, “No. VI,” 254, or a “medium of remission…the means through which, by faith, we are forgiven” (Campbell, “Reply to C.F.,” Christian Baptist 7 [1 February 1830], 181).

[37] Campbell, “No. VII,” 277.

[38] Andrew Broaddus, A Reply to Mr. A. Campbell’s M. Harbinger, Extra on Remission of Sins, Etc. (Richmond, VA: Religious Herald, 1831), 5, 8, 19-24.

[39] Campbell, “The Extra Defended,” Millennial Harbinger 2 (October 10, 1831), 14.

[40] Campbell, “Extra Defended,” 16-17, 37.

[41] John Mark Hicks, “Baptism, Faith and Christian Experience: Baptists and Disciples Part Company,” in Evangelicalism and the Stone-Campbell Movement, ed. by William R. Baker (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2002), 91-124.

[42] J. W. McGarvey, “Is Baptism a Positive Institution?” Apostolic Times 5 (26 June 1873), 4, claims that there was a time “when every preacher in the Reformation had one or more discourses on Positive institutions, and with many it was a favorite subject.”

[43] The following material is derived from John Mark Hicks, "The Gracious Separatist: Moral and Positive Law in the Theology of James A. Harding," Restoration Quarterly 42.3 (2000): 129-47, available at .

[44] Harding, “Should Unbaptized Sectarians be Called Upon to Lead the Prayers of the Lord’s House?” Gospel Advocate 25 (22 February 1883) 118.

[45] Harding, “How Are We Saved? A Reply to the Liberty Baptist. No. 2,” The Way 5 (30 April 1903), 547.

[46] Harding, “Should the Unbaptized,” 118.

[47] Stanley Fowler’s term in his “Baptists and Churches of Christ in Search of a Common Theology of Baptism,” in Sacramentalism 2.

[48] Robert H. Stein, “Baptism and Becoming a Christian in the New Testament,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 2.1 (1998), 6-17. The Baptist evangelical H. Wayne House, “An Evangelical Response to Baird & Weatherly,” in Evangelicalism and the Stone-Campbell Movement, ed. William Baker (Grand Rapids: InterVarsity, 2003), 188: “I enthusiastically acknowledge, contrary to the common practice in Baptist churches, that the early church would not have understood a person claiming to be a Christian who was not baptized.”

[49] Stein, “Baptism in Luke-Acts,” in Believer’s Baptism, 63.

[50] Stein, “Baptism in Luke-Acts,” in Believer’s Baptism, 51 and Schreiner, “Baptism in the Epistles,” in Believer’s Baptism, 75.

[51] Caneday, “Baptism in the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement,” in Believer’s Baptism, 313.

[52] Caneday, “Baptism in the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement,” in Believer’s Baptism, 317..

[53] See Richard L. Harrison, Jr., “Early Disciples Sacramental Theology: Catholic, Reformed and Free,” Mid-Stream 24 (July 1985), 255-92. Alexander Campbell, “Calvin on Baptism,” 4 (November 1833), 543-47, quotes Calvin’s Institutes, 4.15.1-5 after which he writes: “We leave it to the good sense of the reader, whether John Calvin ought not to be called a Campbellite as well as the Apostle Peter.”

[54] James W. McClendon, Jr., Doctrine: Systematic Theology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 388-389.

[55] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 953-954 (italics in original).

[56] Caneday, “Baptism in the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement,” in Believer’s Baptism, 324-325; cf. 312.

[57] Calvin, Commentary upon the Acts of the Apostles (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, reprint 1949), 1:118. Available at .

[58] Campbell, “Any Christians Among the Protestant Parties,” Millennial Harbinger 8 (September 1837), 412.

[59] Campbell, The Campbell-Rice Debate (Lexington, KY: A. T. Skillman & Son, 1844), 519-20

[60] Campbell, “Mr. Meredith on Remission,” Millennial Harbinger 11 (December 1840) 545.

[61] Cf. James A. Harding, “Union Meetings,” Gospel Advocate 25 (27 June 1883), 410: “Now let it be understood I do not find fault with these people because they have not been baptized. That is not the disease; it is only a symptom; unbelief is the disease; their hearts are not right...What right have we to call upon these people who will not obey the Lord, who cannot even endure to hear all of his commands repeated, to lead the services of our Father’s house?”

[62] Campbell, “Any Christians Among the Sects?” Millennial Harbinger 8 (December 1837) 565: “The case is this: When I see a person who would die for Christ whose brotherly kindness, sympathy, and active benevolence know no bounds but his circumstances; whose seat in the Christian assembly is never empty; whose inward piety and devotion are attested by punctual obedience to every known duty; whose family is educated in the fear of the Lord; whose constant companion is the Bible: I say, when I see such a one ranked among the heathen men and publicans, because he never happened to inquire, but always took it for granted that he had been scripturally baptized; and that, too, by one greatly destitute of all these public and private virtues, whose chief or exclusive recommendation is that he has been immersed, and that he holds a scriptural theory of the gospel: I feel no disposition to flatter such a one; but rather to disabuse him of his error. And while I would not lead the most excellent professor in any sect to disparage the least of all the commandments of Jesus, I would say to my immersed brother as Paul said to his Jewish brother who gloried in a system which he did not adorn: "Sir, will not his uncircumcision, or unbaptism, be counted to him for baptism? and will he not condemn you, who, though having the literal and true baptism, yet dost transgress or neglect the statutes of your King?”

[63] Campbell, “Protestant Parties,” 412

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