Baptismal Regeneration and the Wesleyan Way
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From the very beginning of Church history, baptism has been an integral part of the Christian faith. Early in John’s Gospel, Jesus declares to Nicodemus, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again” (John 3:3 NIV). In response to Nicodemus’ confusion, Jesus says it again: “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit” (3:7). In the longer ending of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus declares, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16). In the Book of Acts, Peter tells the gathered crowd, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38).
Yet there are substantial differences in the doctrine of baptism between different Christian traditions. Some traditions hold that baptism is not even necessary, that faith is the one thing needful. Others hold that baptism and regeneration—that is, being “born again,” or saved—go hand-in-hand. For its part, Methodism has always held a certain tension between its emphasis on being born again and its insistence that Holy Communion and baptism are sacraments, means of grace which actually offer spiritual benefits, rather than simply ordinances which the Lord has commanded us to observe. In his systematic theology Classic Christianity, Methodist theologian Thomas Oden observes “[t]hough not separable, baptism and regeneration are distinguishable points of Christian teaching,” but “baptism is obligatory for all who would enter the new covenant community in the same sense that circumcision was viewed as obligatory in the old covenant” (626).
Traditionally, this identification of baptism and regeneration has been called “baptismal regeneration,” and there is scriptural support for making a close link between the two (for example, Paul refers to baptism as “the washing of regeneration” in Titus 3:5). Faith, however, is also an important part of the way of salvation, and many Christians view the idea that water (baptismal or not) should actually confer salvation to be deeply problematic, especially where infant baptism is concerned. For his part, Oden referred to baptismal regeneration as an “oversimplified identification of baptism and the new birth” (626). But what did earlier Methodists think?
Wesley’s views on baptismal regeneration
Throughout his life, John Wesley viewed himself as a faithful Anglican priest, even as he found himself at odds with segments of the Church of England over the Methodists’ practices. He preached repentance and the new birth to a nation that was nominally Christian, the majority of whom were likely baptized as infants. Wesley never denied the validity of infant baptism, but he did constantly call those who were not living out their baptisms to repentance. In his early sermon “The Almost Christian,” published in 1741 (only 3 years after the launch of the Wesleyan Revival), Wesley even counts the baptized as an almost-Christian, one who has “the outside of a real Christian,” but who is ultimately unsaved: “He that hath the form of godliness uses also the means of grace” (I.7) That is, the almost-Christian uses the sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion, alongside prayer, studying the Bible, and other spiritual practices. At this point in his life, a few short years after his Aldersgate experience, Wesley even regarded himself as an “almost-Christian” prior to Aldersgate: “I did go thus far for many years…Yet my own conscience beareth me witness in the Holy Ghost that all this time I was but ‘almost a Christian’” (I.13). Wesley would later moderate his views on “almost” and “altogether” Christians in the sermon “The More Excellent Way” (1787), but at this early stage, “The Almost Christian” perfectly encapsulated Wesley’s thought.
In another early sermon, “The Marks of the New Birth,” published in 1748, Wesley likewise is explicit: "Say not then in your heart, I was once baptized; therefore I am now a child of God. Alas, that consequence will by no means hold” (IV.3). On the face of it, Wesley seems to deny that one is regenerated in baptism. He says to his audience in response to the question of how to escape the damnation of hell, “How indeed, except ye be born again! For ye are now dead in trespasses and sins. To say then that ye cannot be born again, that there is no new birth but in baptism, is to seal you all under damnation, to consign you to hell, without any help, without hope” (IV.4).
But Wesley also concludes the sermon with words that open up the possibility that there is more than one regeneration possible: “‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye also must be born again.’ ‘Except’ ye also ‘be born again, ye cannot see the kingdom of God.’ Lean no more on the staff of that broken reed, that ye were born again in baptism. Who denies that ye were then made ‘children of God, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven?’ But notwithstanding this, ye are now children of the devil; therefore ye must be born again…. And if ye have been baptized, your only hope is this: that those who were made the children of God by baptism, but are now the children of the devil, may yet again receive ‘power to become the sons of God’; that they may receive again what they have lost, even the ‘Spirit of adoption, crying in their hearts, Abba, Father’!” (IV. 5).
In his sermon “The New Birth,” published in 1760, Wesley declares that just as
“the new birth is not the same thing with baptism, so it does not always accompany baptism; they do not constantly go together. A man may possibly be “born of water”, and yet not be “born of the Spirit”. There may sometimes be the outward sign where there is not the inward grace. I do not now speak with regard to infants: it is certain, our Church supposes that all who are baptized in their infancy are at the same time born again” (IV.2).
Here, Wesley is willing to allow that there is at least some conceptual distinction between baptism and regeneration, but he still finds himself unwilling to extend that distinction to the baptism of infants.
Wesley’s Sunday Service
When the American Revolution separated the American Methodists from the Church of England, Wesley sent over a revised copy of the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer, which he called The Sunday Service for the Methodists in North America, to be the American Methodists’ guide to Christian practice. The original Sunday Service was published in 1784, and this Methodist liturgy is notable for the nuances that it adds to Wesley’s theology of baptism. Wesley amended the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion for inclusion in the Sunday Service, and these Methodist Articles of Religion remain a doctrinal standard for Methodists today. In it, Wesley leaves the article which declares that baptism is “a sign of regeneration or the new birth” (Art. XVII). At the same time, he removed multiple references to regeneration in both the rites for infant baptism and adult baptism.
As James White pointed out in the preface to one edition of the Sunday Service, Wesley “makes more moderate the references to baptismal regeneration… without eliminating such references altogether” (20). In both the infant and adult rites, numerous references to the baptismal candidate being regenerated as a consequence of baptism are stricken: in one prayer, Wesley strikes the BCP’s “that these persons are regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ’s Church” to read “that these persons are grafted…” and in another, he amended “Give thy Holy Spirit to these persons; that, being now born again” to read “Give thy Holy Spirit to these persons; that, being born again…” (Sunday Service, 148-9). As a result of these and many other cases, White concluded that “Wesley does not eliminate the concept of baptismal regeneration but seems to remove any presumption on it” (20). In short, while Wesley was unwilling to part with baptismal regeneration, baptism itself was not enough if it did not lead to a godly life of faith and love.
Early Methodist systematic theologies
Two systematic theologians dominate the nineteenth-century Methodist world: Richard Watson and William Burt Pope. Watson’s Theological Institutes (1823) was the first Methodist systematic theology, and it was so highly regarded that it remained the standard text for the Methodist Episcopal Church’s Course of Study for decades. Watson wrote that baptism’s benefits include “introduc[ing] the adult believer into the covenant of grace, and the Church of Christ; and is the seal, the pledge, to him on the part of God, of the fulfilment of all its provisions, in time and in eternity” (I.iv.646). For the infant, though, it is entrance into the covenant community, and a source of grace, and indeed “secures, too, the gift of the Holy Spirit, in those secret spiritual influences, by which the actual regeneration of those children who die in infancy is effected; and which are a seed of life in those who are spared, to prepare them for instruction in the word of God… so that they may be Divinely assisted, as reason strengthens, to make their calling and election sure” (I.iv.646, emphasis in original). In Watson’s system, baptism offers various spiritual benefits to both the adult and the infant. Strictly speaking, though, it is only regenerative in the case of the child who dies in infancy.
William Burt Pope was a major influence in Methodist theological education during the Victorian era, and wrote the highly-regarded A Compendium of Christian Theology (1876). In it, Pope writes that baptism “seals it [regeneration] to the believer, whether as a gift already imparted, as given in conjunction with the rite, or to be fully given hereafter” (III.i.2).
Pope argues that in the proper order of salvation, all human beings are born spiritually dead. Unlike Calvinists, he holds that there is a grace that precedes regeneration and allows repentance and faith (i.e. prevenient grace). Faith itself then results in regeneration. He notes that, in contrast to the Methodist position, “All advocates of sacramental regeneration ex opere operato hold” that regeneration precedes repentance, faith, and justification, “at least in the case of infants baptized. Generally, a distinction is established between the regeneration which confers at the outset a germ of spiritual life and the renewal which goes on, with varying and sometimes very irregular processes, to the end. Conversion, on that scheme, is placed after regeneration” (III.i.). Even so, Pope argues that baptism “is the sign and seal and instrument to adult believers of their pardon and renewal and sanctification. To the children of believers it is the sign and seal and instrument of imparting these blessings so far as they are capable of them: original guilt is removed, the bias to evil is counteracted by initial grace, and adoption into the household of faith is absolutely conferred. If what may be loosely called the germ of grace is regeneration in the infant, then it becomes new birth in the adult” (III.i. Thus, for Pope, baptism may produce regeneration in the adult, but for the infant, baptism always imparts regeneration, which progressively grows until it becomes obvious as an evangelical conversion in the adult.
Conclusion: Murky Waters
Early Methodists are uniform in teaching and declaring that baptism and regeneration may not always occur at the same time in adults. One may be baptized, and not have saving faith, or saving faith may come later. At the same time, opinions are more diverse when it comes to infants. Baptizing an infant obviously brings spiritual benefits to the child—baptism is, after all, a sacrament. Through baptism, God imparts grace to the infant. Baptism is a beginning, but whether this beginning is grace or new life remained unsettled for early Methodists. Either way, parents could take comfort in the fact that their baptized infant was adopted into the family of God, and whether actually regenerated then or later, they would know God’s grace drawing them to him as they grew older.
James Mahoney is an ordained Elder in the Western States Annual Conference of the Global Methodist Church.