Just getting wet?

Some evangelicals sometimes speak of baptism as if it were just getting wet.

Calvin would not have agreed.

In the Catechism of the Church of Geneva (1545) we read:

Minister: But do you attribute nothing more to the water than to a mere symbol of ablution?

Child: I think it to be such a symbol that reality is attached to it. For God does not disappoint us when he promises us his gifts. Hence both pardon and newness of life are certainly offered to us and received by us in Baptism.

Strong stuff! I imagine Calvin would not be allowed to explain baptism in many of our churches!