A Perspective Bit on Baptism

Since I'm a good PCA presbyterian I'm not going to bother actually constructing an argument that justifies infant baptism. There are already plenty of decent (and lengthy) books and a host of articles online which can establish baptism's continuity with circumcision understood within the context of an individual becoming a member of each respective covenant. As a good example, you can read Meredith Kline's take in his two part article. What I want to do here is assume the validity of infant baptism and briefly dig deeper into its covenantal ramifications while at the same time undermining the credo-baptist view.

A lot of confusion surrounding this matter can be cleared up by making a distinction between being a member of the covenant (Old or New) and being a believing, or what some people might call a "true", member of that covenant. This distinction is important because Paul explicitly teaches us that not all who are in Israel are of Israel; the same would also be true of the Church:

Rom. 9:3-8 [NASB] - For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. But it is not as though the word of God has failed for they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; nor are they all children because they are Abraham's descendants, but: "THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED." That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.

What amounts to a practical parallell to this passage appears in the Sermon on the Mount when those who come to Jesus crying "Lord, Lord" are denied because Jesus claims to never have known them. Certainly Jesus knew all about them and that knowledge is what actually prompts His remark. We also find the apostle John expressing a similar thought in his first epistle (1 John 2:17-19). We can see from passages such as these that there can be Christians and Israelites who aren't really Christians or Israelites (i.e. who aren't saved). The problem is that those of us on the more conservative side of evangelicalism ascribe a very strict and specific meaning to the descriptor "Christian." Namely, we understand the term to be equal with "believer" and/or "one who is saved." Under such a definition it would be impossible for a Christian to be a non-believer or unsaved. If we understand "Christian" to refer to a member of the Church or to a member of the covenant family then it is quite possible for a Christian to be a non-believer and unsaved; in fact, most of America is Christian in this sense.

It should be noted here that the arguments for infant and cred0-baptistm are both made from silence as far as the recorded baptisms in Scripture are concerned; you can actually make both arguments from the passage in Romans 9. Proponents of credo-baptism will argue that every instance of baptism found in the New Testament is always of new believers. That is, baptism is given as a sign of the New Covenant only after one has made a conscious decision to become part of the covenant family. The backside of this is that the children of believers should not be considered part of the covenant family until they become believers themselves. Though credo-baptists disagree, this aspect of credo-baptism is the logical conclusion that follows from their understanding of baptism.

It is not, however, the picture that the New Testament presents when we consider the words of Christ Himself while rebuking His disciples: "Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." (Matt. 19:14). To say that some of the children being brought before Jesus were not infants or babes is to make an argument from silence; but so is asserting that there must have been infants and babes. I think many Greek scholars would argue that there most likely would have been infants and babes present. The point is that here is a clear example of believers trying to deny children access to the Bread of Life and, consequently, being rebuked by that very Bread who has said "let them come" (here is also the heart of the paedocommunion argument but that's another story for another time).

The problem I have with the credo-baptist view is that they seem to understand baptism as a sign and seal of the Holy Spirit in the individual. So what happens when one of these adults ends up going the path of rebellion and never repents? Was the seal of baptism ineffective? Maybe I'm simply misunderstanding what credo-baptism really is, but if it is supposed to be an outward symbol/type of an inward reality then this creates problems with other aspects of what the Scriptures teach concerning salvation. What we have, then, with credo-baptism is Christians (i.e. one's who are supposed to be saved) falling away from their faith and into final condemnation; but Paul says that God is faithful and He will finish the work He begins (1 Cor. 1:4-8; Phil. 1:6).

From here it is easy to see 1) baptism isn't required for gaining salvation and certainly doesn't guarantee one salvation; thus there is no reason not to baptise infants in this regard. And 2) the outward sign of baptism is just that, outward. There's no promise made in relationship to this outward sign that obligates God to save the one who is baptised. What is often confused here is equating water baptism with Water baptism. Water is often associated with the Holy Spirit in the New Testament; just as real water gives life, so the Spirit of God gives life. Jesus is the fountainhead of that living water and He promised that anyone who partakes of the water He gives would never thirst.

Proponents of credo-baptism place a great amount of emphasis on the pre-requisite of faith for the administering of baptism, but they also won't allow the faith of the parents to be a "stand-in" for their children until the children make a conscious/unconcious decision one way or the other. They say that the passages in Acts where baptism is for households do not necessarily imply that infants were included amongst those households. Of course, it doesn't say infants aren't included either and it seems extraordinarily unlikely that all of the households coming into the body of Christ at that time would be free of infants. There is also the matter of early church practice; the first written record of infant baptism being found in the writings of Origen a scant century after the last book of the Bible was written (less than a century if you say Revelation was written c. 90 A.D.). It is probable that the tradition of infant baptism came about as a result of baptising whole households, some of which would have invariably contained infants; in other words, it was unavoidable.

So we come full circle: what, exactly, does baptism mean for an infant since it is safe to say it can't/doesn't mean anything to an infant? It seems to me that if we're going to maintain any sort of continuity between circumcision and baptism then, at the very least, we must consider who is supposed to participate. The Old Testament is quite plain and clear that all males, regardless of age, were to be circumcised (Gen. 17:10-14). Even if you weren't a Jew you were required to be circumcised in order to be considered a member of the covenant. It is also clear that infants were not excluded (vs. 12). Two things are fascinating about this: 1) the most obvious: females were not (and could not be) included. The women did not receive any kind of sign or mark of membership that showed they were included in the covenant. Women were actually members by virtue of being under the headship of a man (Father, husband, uncle, etc). 2) Faith was not required of anyone else in the household before they were to receive circumcision. There's no "age of accountability" to be met in order to be circumcised. If you're born or adopted into the family of God then you receive the sign of membership whether you are capable of understanding the significance of it or not.

We see baptism working in a similar manner in the New Testament. Because it is instituted as the sign of the New Covenant, the sign is for all those who were already considered God's covenant people, for those families as they become covenant members and for families as they grow in the covenant. John was baptizing people in the Jordan and who's to say infants weren't present? Like the baptizing of families recorded in Acts, is it really feasible that absolutely no infants or small children were participating? I can imagine the conversation Peter has with the fathers of those households: "Okay guys, now that you've accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, I'm going to baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, as per His final instructions to us. I will baptize you and your family; but not your babies or your children under 12..." Now, imagine Peter is talking to Jews, who were given the original mark of God before they ever had any conception or recognition of it's meaning. Do you think they would take kindly to Pete's method of bringing them into this new and supposedly better covenant? He would essentially be telling them that their children aren't God's children and are, therefore, to be exluded from the covenant family until they decide to join on their own.

The closest thing resembling a sound argument against this view is the credo-baptist's contention that baptism doesn't have any bearing on whether or not one is a member of the covenant. A child born to believers is a member of the covenant by virtue of being born to believing parents. This, however, introduces a completely foreign idea into the theology of covenants, especially when we consider the continuity issue. In the Old Covenant, being born into a Jewish family had nothing to do with being or not being an Israelite. If you weren't circumcised or a female under the authority of one who was circumcised then you were not an Israelite. Of course, we find out in the New Testament that even if you did meet the physical requirements it doesn't necessarily mean you are an Israelite (Romans 9 above).

The point is, as an outward sign of covenant membership, circumcision and baptism serve the same purpose. It is not unlike the relationship between Passover and the Lord's Supper; Passover was a celebration of promises kept and of promises to be delivered and the Lord's Supper is a celebration of promises fulfilled and promises to be fulfilled. As celebratory meals they serve the same purpose, i.e. to remind God's people of His promises to them. Does this mean there is no significant difference between the two? Certainly not! The same is true with baptism and circumcision; there are differences between the two, but not so much as to exclude certain elements of continuity. What this means is that the cred0-baptist view doesn't have any ground to stand upon when taking covenant signs as a whole. Baptism, as an outward sign of covenant membership, should be administered to all who are members of that covenant, including the infants of believing parents.