A Wesleyan View of Baptism

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Despite having been set up as something of a counter-viewpoint to the recent article by Dale Coulter, Wesleyans, Grace, and the Ambiguities of Water Baptism, my intention in this article is not a point-by-point refutation. I don’t disagree with everything in his article. Nor is it my intention here to present the “Anglican” view, but to seriously examine the larger catholic tradition, or consensual tradition, of the historic and universal Church as it relates to baptism and by extension Wesley’s witness to it. This historic witness is the tradition embraced by Wesley, even if we acknowledge the ways that Wesley’s ministry included (at times) pragmatic innovations. Wesley fully embraced the Church’s historic witness to Nicene orthodoxy. He also embraced the historic witness of the Church related to the dominical sacraments, including baptism. As such, the claim that infant baptism and infant dedication are of equal value is to move well beyond what Wesley taught, and arguably to offer an ahistorical Wesleyanism that bears little resemblance to the namesake. 

Wesley embraced certain irregularities. He could admittedly be a maverick. But there are both contextual issues to appreciate and theological guardrails that he never crossed. Neither experience itself, nor pragmatism itself, guided his theological vision. He was grounded in Scripture, the early church and its universal witness, the Reformers, the foundational documents of Anglicanism, the Caroline Divines, and so much more. 

In his article, Coulter leans very heavily when writing about baptism on a certain interpretation of prevenient grace in which the guilt of original sin is wiped away for everyone at birth by the work of Christ. This can be found in a few places in Wesley's writings. In the Minutes of the June 25, 1744 conference, Wesley wrote that "By the merits of Christ all men are cleared from the guilt of Adam's actual sin." This begs the question, however, why did Wesley claim that baptism clears us from the guilt of original sin? And this is one of the questions that Coulter attempts to answer. In the same section of the Minutes, however, it's apparent that the effects of that sin, while stunted, remain. Wesley will argue in numerous places that no one will be damned solely because of Adam, but it's also clear that there's still a problem that needs to be addressed. Original sin matters for Wesley. And it matters in part because even if we're not damned for it, it ultimately keeps us away from God, and therefore the new life of grace that is the promise of salvation. Without the new birth (the remedy for this state), we inevitably fall into the sin that leads us further away from God.  

For Wesley, as for the historic church, baptism communicates the salvific remedy that the sinner so desperately needs. Original sin, regeneration, and baptism are invariably linked in sacramental theology. Baptism is the very means by which we are plunged into the death and resurrection of Christ, marking us permanently as God’s own, and bringing us into the body of Christ, his church. 

But before we go too far, it seems necessary, given the comparison between the sacrament of baptism and the act of infant dedication, to define sacraments and why Christian teaching includes them. For Wesley, as for most Protestants, there are two sacraments, baptism and Holy Communion. These are recognized by Christians of most traditions as the "dominical sacraments," meaning those that were instituted by Christ himself. 

The classical definition of sacraments is helpful. A sacrament is an outward and physical sign of an inward and spiritual grace. Sacraments make sense within the Christian vision as it embraces the tangible reality of our existence and God’s use of the tangible to communicate himself to us. In so many ways, the sacraments are best understood in light of the Incarnation of Christ, who became one of us for many reasons, including that we might actually know him. We are tangible creatures living in a tangible world. God knows this. There’s a physicality, a tangibility, at the heart of the Christian faith. 

We can see this in creation. God created all that is and called it "good." He called the people of Israel, a real, tangible people, to be his own. In the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, all tangible, he walked among us, lived among us, died a real, physical death, and rose physically. He created the Church, his body on Earth, overflowing with the Spirit, as a physical community. And even now, through the Church, he uses something as basic as bread, wine, and water to communicate his saving power, ultimately pointing to the fullness of a new creation. God continues to use the tangible as he always has. Christianity is about a reality that can be touched. 

Some contemporary Protestants have left this tradition behind, including some within the broader Wesleyan family. But it was not left behind by the Protestant Reformers such as Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, or later the Wesley brothers. It was left behind, however, by the Anabaptists and others within the radical, or extremist, wings of the Reformation and later by Puritans (whose arguments Wesley explicitly rejected), ultimately exacerbated by American emphasis on individualism and a detached, even non-materialist, spirituality. What unites these various streams is their denial of God’s work in and through the tangible.  

To begin to understand the historic teaching of the faith, it must be understood that baptism is God’s work, not ours. This is vital. And from the beginning, it calls into question any comparison between baptism and dedication. Baptism is God’s work. Dedication is ours. Infant dedication is our action to dedicate an infant to the care of God. And there is nothing in this that is wrong. All of our lives should be dedicated to God! It only becomes problematic when we try to replace baptism with dedication. 

Wesley on Baptism

There is tension within Wesley's theology of baptism due to his embrace of the evangelical emphasis on the new birth, often preached as an experience among adults. Some within the revival, particularly Baptists, said that any embrace of an evangelical view of the new birth as a distinct, and later, experience necessitated the rejection of infant baptism. But Wesley refused to move in such a radical direction. Instead, he emphasized the continued cooperation with the grace of God that marked a faithful Christian life. If one received the regenerating grace of God in baptism, they were to be responsible with that grace. But he did not deny the reality of God's work in and through baptism. Rather, Wesley's approach was to retain the church's historic teaching, while also emphasizing the fact that we cannot rely solely on previous rites (or experiences); the Christian life is one of continued growth that necessitates our continued cooperation and attention.   

In response to Baptists stealing away Methodist society members in the north of England, Wesley produced his most substantial statement on baptism, A Treatise on Baptism, a reworking of his father’s treatise on the topic, ultimately published in 1758. In it, he defends the historic view of the Church, based on Scripture, the early church, and the standards of the Church of England. In baptism, we receive the washing away of the guilt of original sin (something more than damnation), we are brought into covenant with God, and made a part of his body, the church. And baptism communicates regenerating grace, i.e. the new birth.

To remind us what Wesley meant by the new birth, Kenneth Collins’ work in The Theology of John Wesley is extremely useful. Collins’ wrote:

[I]n displaying the crucial nature of the new birth, that is, in distinguishing it from holding correct opinions; practicing common, acceptable virtue; and even employing all the means of grace, Wesley underscored the basic gospel truth, gladly received by those who knew their need, that the new birth is not a natural change, one that could be brought about merely by human works, will, or design, but a supernatural change…

According to Wesley, only in infant baptism can we always assume that the new birth accompanies baptism; in adult baptism the recipient must cooperate with that grace. But the supernatural nature communicated in and through the sacrament of baptism is inherent in both rites precisely because it is God’s work.  

In the Treatise, Wesley claimed that baptism “is the initiatory sacrament, which enters us into covenant with God. It was instituted by Christ, who alone has power to institute a proper sacrament—a sign, seal, pledge, and means of grace, perpetually obligatory on all Christians.” Note the emphasis on sacrament here, again God’s work, not ours. The “matter” of the “sacrament is water,” Wesley wrote, “which, as it has a natural power of cleansing, is the more fit for this symbolic use.” Again, carefully noting that symbolic does not mean something like “mere symbol,” as it is often understood in contemporary discourse, but as something that participates in that (or who) it re-presents. 

Wesley clearly describes the multiple benefits, and need, for baptism. As to these benefits he wrote, “the first of these is the washing away the guilt of original sin, by the application of the merits of Christ’s death.” And as we are all born under the guilt of this original sin, and all need this application, “this plainly includes infants, for they too die.” 

A longer quotation from the Treatise gives a fuller view of his baptismal theology: 

[T]he merits of Christ’s life and death, are applied to us in baptism. ‘He gave himself for the church, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word;’ namely, in baptism, the ordinary instrument of our justification. Agreeably to this our Church prays in the baptismal office that the person to be baptized may be ‘washed and sanctified by the Holy Ghost, and being delivered from God’s wrath, receive remission of sins, and enjoy the everlasting benediction of his heavenly washing’; and declares in the rubric at the end of the office, ‘It is certain, by God’s Word, that children who baptized, dying before they commit actual sin, are saved.’ And this is agreeable to the unanimous judgment of the ancient fathers.

In another work, his Notes on the New Testament, Wesley made numerous comments on verses that deal with baptism. Looking at Christ’s great commission in Matthew 28:19 to “disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” he states that: 

Baptizing and teaching are the two great branches of that general design. And these were to be determined by the circumstances of things; which made it necessary, baptizing adult Jews or heathens, to teach them before they were baptized; in discipling their children, to baptize them before they were taught; as the Jewish children, in all ages, were first circumcised, and after taught to do all that God had commanded them.

Commenting on Paul’s letter to the Romans (6:3), he wrote that, “In baptism we, through faith, are ingrafted into Christ; and we draw new spiritual life from this new root, through His Spirit, who fashions us like unto Him, and particularly with regard to His death and resurrection.” For Wesley, baptism was a means by which God communicates the riches of Christ’s passion and the saving implications of his work, cleansing us, freeing us, and embracing us. 

In Wesley’s Sunday Service, the theology of baptism seen in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer is entirely retained. He makes some ritual changes, but the theology is not altered. He shortens the rite itself and eliminates godparents (something he had opposed for decades) and removes the requirement that baptisms take place on Sundays or holy days, but the Cranmerian rite, including the sanctification of the water, the forgiveness of sins, and baptismal regeneration, are clearly articulated. Like the 1662 BCP, Wesley includes both a rite for children and another for those of "riper years" who have not been baptized, a later addition made to the Prayer Book as a result of British missionary and colonial expansion that brought about encounters with people groups who had never heard the gospel.  

A Wesleyan View

Grace is inherent within Wesley’s entire understanding of the sacrament, but must be seen alongside Wesley’s firm commitment to the historic faith, his commitment to what I’ve described as the tangibility of Christianity, and his desire to remain firmly rooted in Scripture. 

Infant dedication makes no claim to address the implications of original sin, or to apply the merits of Christ’s death and resurrection. And it can’t, as it is our work, even a beautiful one. Only God can set us truly free and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and that he does freely in baptism. It is one thing to note where Wesley rejects eternal damnation based solely on “Adam’s guilt,” but something entirely different to ask Wesleyans to move away from the sacramental vision that Wesley embraced and the one he inherited from the Church throughout the ages. It’s clear in Wesley’s writings that he saw the continued need to apply the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection, to address the implications of original sin, and offer wholeness in Christ.

Wesley remained convinced that baptism was necessary for the full Christian life, saw the reality of sin in persons of every age, and offered Christ in that sacrament as one shaped and formed by his own Church of England and the larger stream of Christian witness from the time of Christ and his apostles to his own day. It is within this stream that contemporary Wesleyans must place themselves as members of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. We are not at liberty to re-create the wheel, but we are at liberty to receive all the benefits of Christ's work through the means he has appointed. 

To take Wesley’s periodic pragmatism, primarily aimed at evangelistic efforts and justified by extraordinary circumstances, or even his expansive understanding of the atoning work of Christ, and to craft a modern approach to the sacrament of baptism is a step too far to call it Wesleyan. His own commitment to the historic practices of the sacraments remained firm and unmoved, based not simply on his soteriological vision, but on the tradition of Christian witness, and ultimately on Scripture itself.

Ryan N. Danker is director of the John Wesley Institute, Washington, DC and a member of the Firebrand Editorial Lead Team.