One of the problems I had when reading the section Why Sacraments Are Not Signs, I felt that Leithart was confusing who the players were. And he did distinguish, but then he collapses that distinction by infusing both senses in sacramental signs and through the backdoor brings God back in. Moses circumcises, Abraham circumcises at God's command. These are about what we do to identify with the people of God. Israelite kept the Sabbath. What we do to sanctify ourselves. The signs elsewhere are about what God does, and yes through people, to prove Himself. While I agree with Leithart's point about signs having to be enacted, there's nothing "awe-inspiring" about the signs that we enact, at least not in the same way. Sacred, yes; miraculous, no. So someone might want to suggest that there is awe in the sense of a spirit of reverence and humility, and yes. But I'm talking about the sense of David Blaine WTF wonder. "Mighty" might be a bit of an overstatement. For me, imperceptibly at work might as well not be at all. So while God might be at work in "all things", we don't call "all thing" signs. Jesus was "established" via the sign of baptism, but that involved dove-like Spirit-descending and a voice from the sky. Signs alludes to a special type of work when God is a player.
Leithart though was one step ahead of my ignorance. Pp. 38-41 he moved into 1 Cor. 12.13, where he attempts to draw continuity with both the water-baptism passage earlier in the letter and the water-typology in the Exodus narrative. This continuity stems from the similarity of efficacy. Leithart then shows a harmony of the interpretation with Galatians 3. Moreover, he offers a literary argument that if "made to drink into one Spirit" does reference the Eucharist, then it stands to reason that comparatively "baptized into one body" also references water-baptism. There's the contextual argument that since the passage is dealing with the Church, it is therefore discussing the authorized entry rite. Finally and persuasively, he connects Spirit-baptism to water-baptism by showing how the later was considered the means of participation in the former (Act. 2.38). It would have been helpful if he had tightened his identification of "the gift" to Spirit-baptism (Act. 1.5), but oh well.
For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit (1 Corinthians 12.13 NASB).While he arguably did successful argue for interpreting this as a literal baptism into the body of Christ, what he unfortunately left open was the portion about the Spirit's agency. The reason was that wasn't the focus of the section in the chapter, like it is here. I don't know enough Greek though or theology to argue one way or the other. *shrug* I got the sense though that we both interpret the agency issue similarly despite how he left it ambiguous.
Fyi - I dismissed his Reformed infighting arguments about Calvin and confessional arguments as annoying, insignificant, and a waste of ink. I don't think you're ever going to get me commenting on them from here on out except for their contributions to the history of ideas and interpretation.
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