I was shown an article yesterday that offered five reasons why we ought to reconsider infant baptism. You can read that article here. The post was not argumentative nor trying to start an argument. It was reasonable and straightforward and held forth its view gently and fairly. If you want to see some of the reasons for paedobaptism, you can do worse than read it as a primer. No credobaptist has any cause to be offended by anything written in it at all.
I am not looking to have an argument. I am not “replying” to the author (who I don’t know) and I’m not expecting him to “reply” to me. He can if he wants, of course. Very happy for that to happen, but I’m not looking for it or writing to that end. I just think it can be helpful, whenever somebody writes a post like that, to (hopefully just as reasonably) push back a little and explain why, as a credobaptist, I don’t find the particular arguments convincing. So, I am just writing to that end and to explain, solely from my perspective, which of those arguments don’t land with me, which of them I do actually agree with, and why altogether they aren’t then persuasive to me on the issue at hand.
Reason 1: Unbelieving Spouses Are Also Holy
The original post states the following:
Biblical writers never use the word ‘holy’ haphazardly. It is always used purposefully in order to indicate special things that belong to God and are welcome in His presence. This makes Paul’s use of the word in I Corinthians 7:14 particular noteworthy. His argument in this verse seems to be that, if one parent is a Christian, the children in the family are holy. In other words, they are set apart for God and belong to Him. They are His children, not our children.
The problem with this particular argument is that 1 Corinthian 7 also expressly says unbelieving spouses are holy too. If we are to follow the above logic that argues children of one believing parent are holy, and therefore belong to God, this passage must also teach that unbelieving spouses – who are expressly stated as not believing – also actually belong to God and are also his children by virtue of their husband or wife’s faith. I don’t know if Presbyterians would want to also make that case, but if they reject the unbelieving partner ought to be baptised because of their spouse’s faith, they have to say the children ought not to be baptised either. If they want to baptise the children on this ground, an Atheist who actively rejects Christ but whose spouse is a believer also ought to be a candidate for baptism. Naturally, credobaptists suggest the faith of a wife is not grounds to baptise their husband and, therefore, similarly not grounds to baptise their children.
Reason 2: God does say “stop”
The post makes the case that as children were included in the Old Covenant, unless there is some express comments that they should be excluded from the New Covenant, they should receive the signs of the covenant just as in the old. In particular, the post states:
A first century Jew would start Matthew’s gospel and finish Revelation with the presupposition that his or her children were members of God’s family. It’s hard to find any explicit New Testament evidence to contradict this belief.
The post slips into this particular reason a comment on ‘let the little children come to me’. Given this passage mentions nothing about baptism, there isn’t even any water mentioned – the disciples were literally stopping children coming up to Jesus – we should probably be a little cautious before using it to justify who receives the sign of the covenant.
However, there is something in Matthew’s gospel that would imply a change in who receives covenantal signs. Specifically, the baptism of John. The post states ‘A helpful exercise for modern Christians is to imagine that they are first century Jews reading the New Testament for the first time.’ So how would they view John’s baptism? Here is David Kingdon, in Children of Abraham, addressing this very point:
His baptism is administered to those who confess their sins… William Hendriksen, a paedobaptist, comments: ‘Without confession of sins no baptism! For those who truthfully repented of their evil state and wicked conduct baptism… was a visible sign and seal of invisible grace (cf. Rom. 4:11), the grace of the forgiveness of sins and adoption into God’s family.’ This is a statement to which all baptists could give hearty assent.
Those who are capable of confessing their sins are clearly not infants who cannot yet talk, as Francis Turretin clearly recognises. He writes: ‘John admitted no one to baptism unless he confessed his sins because he was dealing with the baptism of adults’, though in the next sentence he denies that this has anything to do with the baptism of infants: ‘But it does not follow that the same should be done with infants’. However, he makes this assertion without supplying any evidence whatsoever!
We have already noticed that the disciples of Jesus administered a baptism that was identical with that practised by John – a baptism of disciples who commit themselves in baptism to the lifestyle of God’s remnant people (Jn. 4:1-2). We have also noticed that our Lord acknowledged that his work and that of John are intimately connected. He avers to the Jewish religious leaders that John’s baptism has behind it the same authority as his own dramatic act in cleansing the temple – it is from heaven. Clearly, then, he was endorsing a baptism that was not for infants, but only for those capable of confessing their sins.
David Kingdon, Children of Abraham, (Grace Publications, 2021), p.192
He goes on elsewhere:
In light of John’s ministry, the neat schema of circumcision/baptism is to be questioned. For in baptising only those capable of confessing their sins, John clearly abandoned the principle of you and your seed (Gen. 17:10). Furthermore, our Lord, in endorsing John’s baptism, clearly did the same.
Earlier in this book, I pointed out the dilemma that faces paedobaptists when it comes to the baptism of John: on their principles, John should have baptised infants as well as adults, since he would, as a Jew, have accepted the principle of ‘you and your seed’. Yet he did not baptise infants. There would seem to be no satisfactory answer to that question, from a paedobaptist standpoint.
To insist that the principle of ‘you and your seed’ is meant to continue in force beyond the ministry of John the Baptist is thus to assume that the clock of redemptive history be turned back and the principle be re-established, having for a time been set aside. But this would be without precedent in scripture.
p.195
Reason 3: Baptism is less of a sign of my commitment to God than the church’s affirmation
The third reason offered in the post I (broadly) agree with. I do think many wrongly identify the candidate publicly professing their faith as primary. I think it would be wrong to suggest it isn’t an act of testimony on the part of the baptismal candidate, but I agree the person being baptised is not the primary agent. Someone is doing the baptising. Only, when I see a baptism it isn’t God doing the baptising either. He has already done his Spirit baptism at the point a credobaptist thinks to dunk anyone in any water. It is the church that is doing the water baptism.
So I fully agree with the original post ‘A lot of Christians have unconsciously accepted the view that, at baptism, the most important action is that of the person being baptised who publicly professes his or her faith. However, this assumption misses the covenantal thrust of the ceremony.’ I believe God has already confirmed his promises with the seal of the Holy Spirit on the baptismal candidate. 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 makes this very clear entirely apart from any baptismal imagery. However, the agent administering water baptism is the church, it is a command given to the church in Matthew 28:19-20 and the covenantal thrust is that here is a person affirmed by the church as belonging to the church. The invisible Spirit baptism and seal of the promises by the Holy Spirit in our hearts is made visible by the church through water baptism and acts as a visible mark that here stands a believer in the New Covenant.
If God has already confirmed his promises to us by the Spirit he has put into our hearts (which 1 Cor 1:21-22 says he has), water baptism must serve some other function. It has a testimony function inasmuch as it is a visible sign of what the Spirit has already done. But it is administered by the church as a visible covenantal affirmation. The Spirit baptism that already brought this person into membership of the universal, invisible church, and who already knows on a personal basis because of the Holy Spirit in their heart that they belong to the covenant, is being visibly affirmed by the church that they belong to the visible church and is part of our covenant community.
Reason 4: Expressive Individuality is not in the New Testament
The fourth reason in the original post – as you can probably tell from Reason 3 above – I don’t disagree with at all. I fully agree the “us” takes priority over the “me”. I don’t think this point has anything much to say in favour of paedobaptism or credobaptism. It has most to say to both paedobaptists and credobaptists who think a total disconnect between them and their local church is an acceptable basis for baptism (whatever form it might take).
Reason 5: A lot of kids never reach the age to profess
Certainly, as a point of fact, this much is true. But without wishing to just totally gloss over this one, the post itself states, ‘Admittedly, this is an emotional argument.’ It certainly isn’t a biblical one. I suspect that is why there is no Baptist consensus on this point. Certainly credobaptists don’t argue for baptismal regeneration and therefore don’t see baptism as necessary for salvation (cf. Luke 23:43). Some argue that means all infants who don’t reach an age to profess are necessarily saved. Others, landing hard on salvation by faith, take the view that they necessarily aren’t. Others still take a mediating position and suggest it is both possible and likely many are, but not all are. You can read this post here to see where I fall, and as part of it where Spurgeon landed, on that question. But it pays to say we are all trying to make sense of the biblical data here and can’t draw direct lines, because the Bible simply doesn’t offer a direct, straightforward ‘infant mortality means…’ position.
What I can say, concerning the original post, is it quotes a common portion of scripture which, whenever it is quoted, almost always leaves out the rest of the verse. Partially quoting Acts 2:39, the article states the promise is ‘for you and your children’. Less helpfully for the paedobaptist position, it fails to mention the rest of the verse ‘and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.’ It also ignores what comes almost immediately after it in v41: ‘Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.’ What are we to say about this?
The promise expands in v39 to ‘all who are far off’. Unless we intend to argue ‘all who are far off’ ought to be baptised too, there is no reason to assume all children of believers ought to be baptised on this verse. Not least, the verse itself makes clear it is ‘for all whom the Lord our God will call’ and doesn’t state it is for everyone born into a Christian family. Similarly, the only people who are baptised later appear to be those who ‘accepted his message’ and such people were baptised after they accepted this message. There is no mention of their infant children being baptised along with them, nor their households, presumably either because they did not accept the message, were not there to accept the message or are included in the 3,000 who did, in fact, accept the message themselves.
The original post, in an earlier reason, suggested the household baptisms shows this was at play in the mind of the biblical writers. However, not only does John’s baptism cut against this, the household baptisms also tell us that all received the Word in the household and therefore were baptised. The construction appears to be the same as in Acts 2. As I previously argued here:
All the baptisms we read about were of those who professed belief. Were there children among the households who were baptised? Probably. But we are told in Acts 10 that ‘all who heard the message received the Holy Spirit’ and it is apparent that this is perceived through the speaking of tongues, prompting Peter to baptise them all. Acts 16 has the household baptisms of Lydia and the Philippian jailer. In the jailer’s case, v34 makes clear he ‘had believed in God’ and this along with ‘all his household’ – implying everyone who was baptised had themselves believed. Lydia’s household baptism is less clear, but there is no explicit statement of paedobaptism (nor obvious implication). Most committed paedobaptists accept the household baptism are, at best, unclear. Apart from appeal to the household baptisms – of which only Lydia’s permits the possibility – there are no examples of any paedobaptisms in scripture.
I have changed my mind slightly and am inclined to suggest, in Acts 10, there were not infants in the household because they spoke in tongues. The plural makes clear this is not only the head of the household. Similarly, I would draw the same inference from the Philippian jailer’s household when it says his whole household believed. Lydia’s case is less clear, but in the face of any such evidence, we have to insert a big supposition into the text to use it as grounds for paedobaptism and, in the face of the overwhelming evidence elsewhere, I struggle to see how that supposition can be substantiated.
Now, as I said at the top, I am not here for an argument. I am just sharing why I do not find this particular line of reasoning convincing. I am sure many of my paedobaptist friends will not find what I have written here unassailable or utterly convincing either. I expect nothing less. I am just explaining why I do not find the arguments of the original post personally convincing. You can read that one, and this one, and decide for yourself.