Preston Graham is a PCA pastor. He is, for those who are counting, opposed to paedocommunion. As far as I can recall from a couple of years ago at General Assembly, he delays the admission of covenant children to communion longer than anyone else I have heard of. I bought his book at the PCA GA book table a few years earlier. Perhaps the latter half of the book includes a rationale for why covenant children should not be admitted to the table and a sample test they must pass in order to be given access.

My point in all this is not to criticize Graham, who is well within his rights in all these things. My point is simply to say that, no matter how familiar it may sound, what follows below was not written by Rich Lusk:

EXCERPT
A BAPTISM THAT SAVES: The Reformed Sacramental Doctrine of Baptism Argued and Clarified

1999 Christ Presbyterian Church, New Haven, CT 06510

Pages 14-16

The sacramental view [of baptism] most accords with the idea of God’s initiating a covenant by his sovereign decree in election–effecting this through effectual calling. This is because, instead of God “watching/witnessing” the transaction represented by baptism, He is present as mediated through the sacrament to initiate and effect the covenant. He is God the covenant Actor, not merely God the covenant witness, and this is related to the whole order of salvation held by the Reformed tradition. Therefore, we don’t think of baptism as something we do, but rather as something God does–at least in the ultimate sense. While the recipient physically gets wet, God washes the elect to with the Holy Spirit unto regeneration in effectual calling. (But keep in mind the WCF qualifications according to the principle of God’s sovereign grace.)

Consider then the following passages of Scripture that, by a plain reading, will clearly depict baptism effecting salvation rather than merely signifying salvation–although it certainly does this as well–and ask yourself, Why impose a meaning that is not most natural and obvious from the language itself?

1. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, by baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and by teaching them… (Matthew 28.19)
2. he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we have done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3.5)
3. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you–not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (First Peter 3.1)
4. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave nor free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3.27-28).
5. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit (First Corinthians 12.13).
6. The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned (Mark 16.16).
7. And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2.38).
8. And now why do you delay? Get up, be baptized, and have your sins washed away, calling on is name (Acts 22.16).
9. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life (Romans 6.3-4).
10. But by refusing to be baptized by him, the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves (Luke 7.20).

If you read these passages as if you have never even thought about the issue before, try telling yourself that each passage does notso seem on the surface at least to treat baptism as somehow effecting something–namely salvation from sin in its various dynamics. So what is the most simple and honest reading of “be baptized … so that your sins may be forgiven and our sins washed away” except that baptism is in some sense effecting the washing away of sins? And again, if this were the only passage that seemed to imply this, we may then see if there is a less natural, albeit grammatically possible, way of reading it. But then we read Peter’s exhortation to “be baptized… so that your sins may be forgiven and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” What does the contingent and future language most naturally say except that baptism is in some sense viewed as transacting the gift of the Holy Spirit to the person being baptized? Or, we read that God “saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we have done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” What “water” is this except the waters of baptism? And what does it do except “effect,” in some sense at least, “rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit”?

THUS ENDETH THE EXCERPT

Now, let me ask you. Is Preston Graham the only one who says these sorts of things? Why no. Other also. Like who? Well, like Michael Horton, for one.

When you hear hysterical screams of terror about allegations of “baptismal regeneration” being imported into Presbyterianism, you should ask yourself who is being accused and why them and not others. You might also ask yourself why a broad cross-section of Presbyterians, whose only commonality seems to lie in a genuine interest in and respect for the Reformed tradition, seem to be saying such similar things.

Look at this another way, in keeping with my recent fiction reading: Say someone who was “anti-FV” was given a machine that would unmake anyone he wished was unable to influence the PCA. I don’t mean make them disappear; I mean go back in time and ensure they were never born at all. No John Frame. No Steve Wilkins. No Preston Graham. No Rich Lusk or Mark Horne or, for that matter, eighty-five churches. None of them was ever around to contaminate this history of the PCA.

And lets add Karl Barth and Thomas Torrance and anyone else of the “Barthians” who may be thought to be secretly influencing the PCA.

What would happen?

Quite simply, other people who read the Westminster Standards with genuine interest–others with an interest in the Bible and with Zacharias Ursinus and with the history of the Reformed liturgies, and with an interest in the scholastics and Puritans–would fill the vacuum. The problem is not Rich or Steve or me, or Al Gore’s invention of the internet. The problem is that the Westminster Standards say things that don’t fit what certain Presbyterians want them to say.

If you want to change time and free us from these conflicts, you’re going to need to go back in time to the Westminster Assembly itself. Or perhaps further.