Wesleyans, Grace, and the Ambiguities of Water Baptism [Firebrand Big Read]

Photo by Pearl

A Note from the Editors: From the beginning, Firebrand has tried to serve the entire Wesleyan tradition in its Anglican, Methodist, Holiness, and Pentecostal branches. While there is a common tradition that unites all Wesleyans, there are also disagreements. At Firebrand, we want to model respectful exchanges over those disagreements as part of the sanctifying work of the Spirit guiding us into the truth. For that reason, we have invited Ryan Danker to offer a response from an Anglican perspective.

There is no doubt that all Wesleyans share in the Anglican inheritance John and Charles transmitted to the people called Methodists. It is equally the case that Wesleyans disassembled, modified, and reassembled this inheritance. John Wesley’s own penchant for selective editing modeled how to retain the kernel and discard the husk. What drove Wesley’s theological “editorializing” was the need to deal with the intellectual and pastoral challenges he faced. One might say that Wesley was a “Christian realist.” 

In the service of that realism, he sought to maintain the tension between seemingly disparate points of doctrine. By describing John Wesley as a "conjunctive theologian," Ken Collins has helpfully kept Wesley interpreters from breaking the tension. Wesley is a both/and theologian—well, almost always. In the case of water baptism, he was both sacramental and evangelical, but he was not both infant baptism and believer's baptism like the Wesleyan movement has become. On some matters, choices must be made. 

The challenge of developing a theology of baptism within the Wesleyan tradition has been the tensions in maintaining both/and. Setting aside for this piece the Salvation Army’s position to dedicate infants and not to administer water baptism at all, the challenge is not so much the tension between the sacramental and the evangelical as it is between prevenient grace and regenerating grace. There are three issues that should be addressed in any Wesleyan theology of baptism: the nature of grace, the mode of grace, and the tensions between these modes. By addressing these three areas, Wesleyans can find some common ground that holds all sides of the movement together. Let me begin with the tensions between the modes before discussing the nature and modes of grace. 

The Tensions Between the Modes of Grace

One can detect the tension between prevenient and regenerating grace in a number of early Methodist theologians. In his debate with Reformed thinkers, John Fletcher articulated a justification of infants that he grounded in the prevenient activity of the Spirit. Christ's forgiveness for original guilt automatically extends to all infants and brings grace to the conscience, thereby preparing them for heaven. Francis Asbury explicitly grounds the practice of infant baptism in a universal bestowal of the Spirit through prevenient grace. In answer to the question of who should be baptized, Asbury states, “Men, women, children, and infants. . . The claim of children, it was stated, arose out of the general love and benevolence of God, and the general and universal influences of the Spirit.” 

Wesley's own Christian realism prevents him from resolving the tension, preferring instead to affirm the following points:

1. Infant baptism is regenerative, covenantal, and ecclesial. It effectuates new birth, removes original guilt, and brings the infant into relationship with God and the people of God.

2. The operation of regenerating grace in infant baptism may be short-circuited, quickly returning the person to the status of unregenerate.

3. Baptism is a sign that remains distinct from the new birth and therefore does not always accompany the new birth.

4. Prevenient grace removes original guilt and awakens and stirs the conscience in every person in preparation for the new birth, including the baptized who are no longer regenerate.

5. Prevenient grace is not regenerative, but it is juridical (forgiveness of original guilt) and relational (facilitates a relationship based on the Spirit's active presence within). 

One might ask what difference baptism makes for the infant. God in Christ justifies the baptized and unbaptized infant and brings both into relationship with himself by placing his Spirit within. Both, then, will go to heaven if they die before the age of accountability. Both the baptized and unbaptized infant may enter the age of accountability in a similar place because the former will most likely negate regenerating grace from baptism. What remains is that infant baptism is covenantal and ecclesial through regenerating grace in a way that prevenient grace cannot facilitate. The baptized infant benefits from being part of the people of God.

It was partly because of this ambiguity that some Wesleyans preferred to dedicate their infants rather than baptize them. What benefit does infant dedication bring to the child? It is covenantal and ecclesial, at least in the sense that the anointing with oil and the vows taken by the parents and the congregation bring the child into the family of God and enable the child to participate in the blessings of God. Grounded in prevenient grace, infant dedication seems to do everything infant baptism does. The rejoinder, “the baptized infant is regenerate,” is of little consequence since its effects seem no different in terms of the long way of salvation. 

Following Wesley, I am being a Christian realist about the pastoral importance and salvific effect of infant dedication and infant baptism. To this end, let me offer two clarifying examples. I was dedicated as an infant, grew up experiencing all the blessings of the people of God (prayers, altar calls, revivals, common worship, missions, etc.), and became a scholar of the church. I have Methodist friends who were baptized as infants, grew up experiencing the blessings of the people of God, and became scholars of the church. Our living out the way of salvation in terms of prevenient grace, regenerating grace, sanctifying grace, etc., is virtually the same. 

My own children were dedicated as infants and raised in Pentecostal churches. However, they went to Vacation Bible School (VBS) at a small and vibrant United Methodist Church around the corner from our house between the ages of 5 and 10, and then they went on mission trips with the youth. In that VBS, they were invited to come to Christ in a similar way to what would have occurred in a Pentecostal or even a Baptist church. The pastoral practice was to never assume children were regenerate even if they had been baptized as infants. This practice was not the result of theological ignorance on the part of the Methodists running the VBS but because they held that all children (and adults) must cooperate with grace to facilitate holiness of life, and holiness is the very heart of salvation. Hence, VBS is about evangelism and discipleship. It is conjunctive just like Wesley taught.

While one may maintain a theological distinction between infant baptism and infant dedication, in practice it breaks down. The regenerate baptized child and the unregenerate dedicated child look the same in terms of responding or not to the demands of the gospel. Such is the ambiguity that results from maintaining the tension between modes of grace. An analysis of the nature and modes of grace may provide some common ground on how both sides of Wesleyanism seek to maintain this tension.

The Nature of Grace

For Wesleyans, grace is free, personal, relational, and transformational. To claim that it is personal is to identify grace as the common activity of the triune persons. It is not an impersonal force, even though scripture uses the language of power as a close equivalent. This power is the personal presence of the Father expressed through Christ and the Spirit working for and in human persons. It is the common expression of the singular operation of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Paul is unashamed of the gospel because it is the “power of God for salvation” (Rom. 1:16). Yet, Paul also attributes his ministry to “the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of his power” (Eph. 3:7). This power comes through Christ in the Spirit and returns believers to the Father. In Paul’s words: “Through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father” (Eph. 2:18). The Father is always working in and through the Son and the Spirit’s activities.

Having become flesh, the person of the Son is Jesus of Nazareth, sent from the Father to live, die, rise again, and ascend back to the Father in triumph over sin, death, and the devil. Christ is God for us. The Spirit is the “promise of the Father” (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4-5) and the “Spirit of Christ” (Rom 8:9; 1 Pet. 1:11). The Father joins with the Son to breathe forth the Holy Spirit. As the love of God (Rom. 5:5), the Spirit empowers humans to unite and conform to Christ over the course of their lives that they might share in the Son’s journey from death to life and from earth to heaven. The Holy Spirit is God in us. This is why Wesley states that the operations of the Spirit are “the graces which he operates in a Christian.” 

Rooted in the triune persons, grace is God freely and lavishly giving of himself to his creation. God gives God. Grace is the Father giving the gift of the Son and the Son joining with the Father to send the gift of the Spirit. Grace is both free and personal–a free gift of God sharing the life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with humanity. The link between grace and power in the New Testament is that both point toward the personal presence of the Son and the Spirit for us and in us.

Grace is also relational and transformational. Through Christ and the Holy Spirit, the Father brings humans into relationship with himself. The metaphors for union used throughout the New Testament point toward a vital, living connection. One need only think of vine-branches (John 15:1-5), stones-temple (1 Pet. 4:4-10), bride-bridegroom (Eph. 5:23-28), and body-head (1 Cor. 12:12-27) to see how the relational and the connectional flow together. Or, how Paul uses “in Christ” language throughout his letters to underscore the way believers participate in Christ’s life and mission. Humanity experiences grace as the gift of a relationship that changes and renews. 

The way this relationship changes and renews is through transforming human persons from being corrupted and diseased to healed, whole, and holy. The relationship itself is a bond made possible as the Holy Spirit pours out God's love to radically re-form human love into the very shape of Christ. A life of holiness flows from cooperation with the Holy Spirit to conform every part of one's life to Christ. The more believers become like Christ through the Spirit, the more intimate the relationship and the deeper the union with the Father.

Grace is the free gift of God’s personal presence and power to bring human persons into relationship by transforming them into the likeness of Christ through the power and love of the Holy Spirit. The question is: how does this grace come to human persons, and this speaks to its various modes.

The Modes of Grace: Operations and Means

The New Testament understanding of how grace comes to us is simple and complex. It is simple insofar as grace is always about God taking the initiative by giving lavishly of himself to us. Grace is always a free gift. As James puts it, "Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights" (Jas. 1:17).

It is complex insofar as God uses a variety of means to transmit his grace and diverse operations of grace to achieve different aims in the service of his ultimate goal. Just as parents give of themselves for their children so that everything they do and provide may be described as a gift, so God pours himself out in myriad ways to provide for his creation. The Incarnation is the heart of this gift-giving. The Son uses his own human nature to save humanity. In becoming flesh, Christ becomes the means of salvation. All of the means of grace flow out of the Incarnate Son. While the Spirit does not become flesh, he works in creation to bring about the plan of God. All operations of grace flow from the Holy Spirit. 

To speak of the modes of grace, therefore, is to speak of means and operations. To build on Wesley, grace is Christ for us as the way of salvation (the means) and the Spirit in us as the power of salvation (the operations). These two distinct modes should not be confused. 

Prevenient, regenerating, sanctifying, charismatic, and glorying grace refer to different operations of the Spirit to achieve different aims. The primary aim of prevenient grace is the Spirit’s convicting presence to guide individuals to Christ. As two dimensions of a single movement, repentance and faith turn the person away from sin (repentance) and toward God (faith). Every intellectual conversion to the truth stems from the Spirit’s illuminating the mind and every moral conversion to the good results from the Spirit’s empowering/igniting the will and the affections. 

When a person recognizes the truth that there is one God who loves them, the Spirit is moving upon the mind, giving insights and empowering connections. When an alcoholic seeks out help because finally he sees the truth about alcohol's destruction and he desires to be made whole, the Spirit is present, stimulating thoughts and desires to liberate from addiction. Even if individuals don't recognize the Spirit's presence, non-believers cooperate with internal impulses and thoughts that reorient them toward truth and goodness. The ultimate aim is to bring persons to Christ, who is himself goodness and truth.

While prevenient grace forms truth and goodness in human persons, it does not form Christ within them. One might say that the Spirit leads non-believers down the path to Christ, but regenerating grace is the movement into union with Christ by forming Christ in the soul. In the new birth, the Spirit conceives Christ in the heart by reshaping the heart into the likeness of Christ. This is what being born again attempts to describe. The Spirit imprints people with Christ, reshaping and refashioning them anew into the image of Christ and thereby uniting them to Christ. 

Since to reshape and reform the person into the image of God involves separation from the world and consecration to God, the Spirit's sanctifying grace flows directly out of regenerating grace. It is the same Holy Spirit but he moves from giving birth to Christ within to consecrating us to Christ. The aim of sanctifying grace is to perfect love for God and neighbor and so binds the believer more fully to Christ. This happens through a cooperative process that facilitates the formation of holy habits, especially faith, hope, and love. 

Charismatic grace aims to conform believers to the mission of Christ in the world by unleashing the gifts of the Spirit. These gifts build on the fruit of the Spirit by integrating natural abilities and talents with the history of a person’s life so that something new emerges. Spiritual gifts take holy habits, natural abilities, and personal history into a new orientation toward neighbor that binds the person into a whole and further increases holiness. Entire sanctification can never be the end of holiness. It is only a stage on the way to a higher and deeper holiness. By conforming the person to the mission of Christ, charismatic grace deepens holiness and further perfects the believer. 

All of the operations of grace flow into glorying grace, the final operation that fully integrates the person into a whole, body and soul, as this corruptible puts on incorruptible and this mortality puts on immortality. As I said, these operations are the personal presence of the Holy Spirit who brings us to Christ and transforms us fully into the likeness of the risen Lord. The Holy Spirit is always the Spirit of Christ, bringing Christ down to believers even as he enables believers to ascend to Christ. 

We cannot confuse the operations of grace with the means by which they come to us any more than we can confuse Christ with the Holy Spirit. When we use the language of means of grace, we are speaking broadly of every created thing God uses to facilitate works of piety and works of mercy. God uses human nature in the incarnation, but he also uses human persons, water, oil, wine, bread, and other objects and actions. 

To put it another way, the means of grace facilitate worship in its most expansive sense of love for God and neighbor. We worship God when we love our neighbor for the sake of God. And worship, in this more expansive sense, is how believers cooperate with the various operations of grace at work within. God knows that humans need things to see, to touch, to taste, to smell, and to hear in order to facilitate the proper holy actions that bring about holiness. 

The term sacrament entered into Christian discourse by the end of the second century as a Latin  translation of the Greek term for “mystery.” The benefit of the term was its ability to hold together several crucial ideas. First, a sacrament was a vow taken by Roman soldiers. Christians were themselves soldiers, gladiators in the army of the Lord who had sworn fealty to Christ as the only Lord and God the moment they uttered their baptismal vows. Of course, baptism was not the only ritual where Christians gave oaths. They did so in the Eucharist, in marriage, and even in the liturgy or public worship of the church. Hence, the language of sacrament was immediately broader than “the sacraments.” 

Second, a sacrament was an object or an action that symbolized something deeper. The vows that Roman soldiers took occurred in the context of a "secret ceremony" that involved symbolic gestures and actions to convey that they were becoming part of a larger group–they were becoming an arm of Rome. The term sacrament underscored the way God used material signs like water or oil and bodily actions like submersion, anointing, preaching, reading, hand gestures, and kneeling to convey the mysteries of salvation, to bring individuals into the story of God, and to bind them to the church, a people on a journey to their true home. 

When early theologians like Augustine referred to a sacrament as a sacred sign, they did not simply mean a material object like water or bread. They also meant the words of the creed and the renunciation of their past life that baptismal candidates uttered, and the words and actions of the bishop pronouncing the name of the triune God as he plunged them into the water and brought them back up. The sacrament of baptism was the entire sequence, a complex spiritual movement from death to life signified by material objects, words, and actions. 

In the early church, sacraments could refer to all kinds of sacred objects, words, and actions because they together formed a new world with its own story found in the holy scriptures. Even though baptism, Eucharist, and confirmation were the core sacraments, they were not the only sacraments. The five feasts of Nativity, Epiphany, Passover (Easter), Ascension, and Pentecost formed the core celebrations of the work of the Incarnate Son and the Spirit to create the people of God. The creeds provided the summary of the biblical story that interpreted the work of the Son and the Spirit. One could never divorce sacraments from feasts or creeds since together they conveyed the new world God had created and that scripture embodied. 

For Wesleyans, the language of ordinance has been the way to identify the core sacraments but there has always been a recognition that the means of grace are much broader. While Wesleyans use the language of means of grace to describe what the early church understood by sacrament, we must never divorce ordinances (water baptism and the Eucharist) from the many sacred objects we use, words we speak, and actions in which we engage. Ordinances demarcate baptism and Eucharist as the particular actions using specific objects and words that Christ ordained to fulfill his promise to be with his people always. Yet, they should never be divorced from the rest of the means of grace. 

When I ask God to heal my neighbor, it is a sacred word and action that may become a means of grace the Spirit uses to lead her to Christ. I close my eyes, bow my head, raise my hands, or bend my knees and utter petitions for God to do what I cannot. This prayer for physical healing is one thread in a larger tapestry in which ordinary actions (like raising hands or kneeling) become sacred, ordinary words (Our Father), and ordinary objects (like water, oil, bread, or wine) become holy instruments. There may be sacraments in the sense of ordinances and sacramental actions like anointing with oil but they are members of the body, parts of a larger whole. God uses the means of grace as conduits of divine operations of grace in us. 

Having discussed the nature and modes of grace, we can draw the following conclusions about baptism. For all Wesleyans, the Spirit operates in and through the baptismal words, actions, and waters. We may debate what precise operation of grace grounds water baptism (prevenient, regenerating, or sanctifying grace) but we all affirm the presence of the Spirit. Moreover, Wesleyans can agree that the purpose of this operation is to connect the person to Christ in a more profound way. 

Third, all Wesleyans can agree that the material objects and actions in water baptism symbolize the deeper work the Spirit is performing. The same Holy Spirit who inhabits our praise and anoints our sermons, flows into the waters so that the words "I baptize you in the name of" alongside the act of baptizing binds human lives to God in covenantal relationship. At the same time, every operation of the Spirit enables and requires the cooperation of believers. Without such cooperation, the Spirit's work will be short-circuited. 

Finally, all Wesleyans hold that the full meaning of water baptism is part of the broader story of God in scripture. Wesley’s insistence that he preached as though the baptized were not regenerate is a reminder that baptism is always part of a way, embodied in a story, and carried by a people who are returning to the triune God. Christians enact this story in the feasts they celebrate, embody this story in the works they perform, and retell this story in the creeds they recite, the sermons they preach, and the testimonies they give. 

The Reformation commitment of sola scriptura means that scripture stands at the center of the telling of the story as its inspired and infallible witness but scripture is not the only witness. The scripture that alone stands at the center is never alone in the same way that the justification by faith that alone brings acceptance before God is never alone.

While Wesleyans must make a choice between infant or believer’s baptism (I certainly have), they may still return to a theology that lives in the conjunctive tensions of pastoral realities and binds Wesleyans together into a single fabric from Anglican to Pentecostal. 

Dale M. Coulter is Professor of Historical Theology at Pentecostal Theological Seminary and serves on Firebrand’s Editorial Board.