the geneva catechism 4
322. What are they? Baptism and the Holy Supper.
323. What likeness and difference is there between them? Baptism is for us a kind of entrance into the Church of God, for it testifies that instead of our being strangers to Him, God receives us as members of His family. The Supper testifies that God as a good Father carefully feeds and refreshes the members of His household.
324. That the meaning may be more clear to us, let us treat of them separately. First, what is the meaning of Baptism? It consists of two parts. The Lord represents to us in it, first, the forgiveness of our sins (Eph. 5:26, 27) and, secondly, our regeneration or spiritual renewal (Rom. 6:4).
325. What resemblance has water with these things in order to represent them? The forgiveness of sins is a kind of washing, by which our souls are cleansed from their defilements, just as the stains of the body are washed away by water.
326. What about the other part? The beginning of our regeneration and its end is our becoming new creatures, through the Spirit of God. Therefore the water is poured on the head as a sign of death, but in such a way that our resurrection is also represented, for instead of being drowned in water, what happens to us is only for a moment.
327. You do not mean that the water is a washing of the soul. By no means, for that pertains to the blood of Christ alone, which was shed in order to wipe away all our stains and render us pure and unpolluted before God (I John 1:7; I Peter 1:19). This is fulfilled in us when our consciences are sprinkled by the Holy Spirit. But by the Sacrament that is sealed to us.
328. Do you think that the water is only a figure to us? It is such a figure that the reality is conjoined with it, for God does not