Lord's Day 42

When a branch is grafted into the vine, the life, health, and strength of the branch comes from the vine itself, and the branch can only bear fruit as long as it remains connected to the vine. So it is with our life in Christ. In Baptism, our lives are so identified with Christ’s that he becomes the vine and we the branches. As we are submerged in the water, we die a death like Christ’s; as we come up from the water, we are raised to a new life in Christ. The life we now live we live in Christ, and, as the apostle Paul writes, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me.” 

United with Christ in Baptism, we receive the blessings of the covenant life, namely regeneration by the Spirit of Christ in us, the forgiveness of sins by the blood of Christ, adoption as the heirs of God in Jesus Christ, and the sure and certain hope of resurrection unto everlasting life. Moreover, as members of the body of Christ, we are placed within the covenant community of the church, in which we are nurtured in our faith, equipped for ministry, and called to serve one another in the love of God. 

Baptism is given to all who publicly profess their faith, as well as their children. Whereas circumcision, the sign of the old covenant, was given to the sons of Israel when they were 8 years old, baptism, the sign of the new covenant in Jesus Christ, is also given to our children as a sign of their inclusion (Acts 2:38-39; Gal 3:17-18). Matthew Henry has once wrote, “I cannot but take occasion to express my gratitude to God for my infant baptism; not only as it was an early admission into the visible body of Christ, but as it furnished my pious parents with a good argument for an early dedication of my own self to God in my childhood. If God has wrought any good work upon my soul, I desire with humble thankfulness, to acknowledge the moral influence of my infant baptism upon it.”