All Scripture quotes are from the New King James Version. Originally posted on The Blog As Best As I Remember It.
Perhaps the most common objection to the practice of infant baptism is occasionally expressed thus: “Just give me one verse.” This of course refers to the famous silence of Scripture, at least on a cursory reading, about baptizing the infants of Christian believers, as we don’t have a clear instance of specific instruction about baptizing babies or an example of an infant specifically being baptized. And if we are looking for an explicit statement requiring or recording the baptism of believers’ infant children, we indeed won’t find a clear “proof text.” (Hence the past—at least—several centuries’ worth of controversy about the validity of this practice.)
In fact, (speaking in these terms) Scripture may indeed be notably silent in this area. But if so, then (in that sense) it seems to be silent in multiple aspects, and I’m not sure that we often consider some of them. Let us cast brief glances.
Belief as a requirement for baptism
Must one believe before one can be baptized?
What kind of a question is that?, I hear me wondering. (Sorry—I may occasionally address myself, and my lifelong view of baptism, out loud here.)
Apparently it is a question. I found this fascinating, by J. C. Ryle in Knots Untied (from the chapter on Baptism):
In reply to this argument, I ask to be shown a single text which says that nobody ought to be baptized until he repents and believes. I shall ask in vain. The texts just quoted prove conclusively that grown-up people who repent and believe when missionaries preach the Gospel to them, ought at once to be baptized. But they do not prove that their children ought not to be baptized together with them, even though they are too young to believe. I find St. Paul baptized “the household of Stephanas” (1 Cor. I. 16); but I do not find a word about their believing at the time of their baptism. The truth is that the often-quoted texts, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,”—and “Repent ye, and be baptized,” will never carry the weight that Baptists lay upon them. To assert that they forbid any one to be baptized unless he repents and believes, is to put a meaning on the words which they were never meant to bear. They leave the whole question of infants entirely out of sight. The text “nobody shall be baptized except he repents and believes,” would no doubt have been a very conclusive one. But such a text cannot be found!
Obviously, in believer-baptism-only circles, this requirement is the entire point. You are not to baptize anyone who is not a believer, meaning he (truly) believes. If he has believed, he has been born again, and thus must be baptized.
But therein lies the fly between the ointment and a hard place: how do we know about any specific individual that he has truly believed and therefore has actually been born again? (If we think so now and therefore baptize him, and he later appears to never have truly been born again, then once he really is born again, we must baptize him a second time, because he has not yet been baptized as a believer.)
Regeneration as a prerequisite to discipleship
I rather appreciate my heritage coming from a believer-baptism-only, low church, American non-denominational background. Yet I have also come, recently, to appreciate the terms “visible church” (all who profess faith in Christ, clearly visible or discernible to all of us on earth) and “invisible church” (those who truly have been born again), which were not terms I often heard as I grew up. I wonder if we could find this distinction helpful when reading through the account of the church in the book of Acts, as well as when reading the epistles.
I also think that this type of distinction—all professors vs. true believers—may sometimes be useful when we read or use the term “disciple”. For example, consider what happened in John 6 after Jesus taught the necessity of eating His flesh and drinking His blood:
From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.
Gathering in meetings of local churches today, are there not sometimes false professors, wavering or uncertain souls, as well as born-again believers? We wish it were not so, of course. Yet consider the Lord Jesus’s parable of the sower: the one who received seed on stony places “receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while” (Matthew 13:20-21). Consider the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30):
Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”
In my own experience, in the Christian denominations that I was raised in, there was no “visible church” and “invisible church” distinction: to become a disciple, you must be born again. How can you tell if someone else (not yourself) has been born again? By their fruit, of course. Their status as all of “believer”, “Christian”, “disciple”, and “part of the church” all hinged on the specific moment of conversion, a definite, singular, (when you think about it) humanly-unknowable moment when God gives a new heart and new life and the person is born again. We usually connected this to a prayer for salvation, and of course to belief in the Gospel. Whether the prayer was sincere or the belief genuine, everyone would know by observing the person’s life after that point.
So deeply rooted is this view that in a family holding to believer-only baptism, a child may be born and grow up saturated in the teaching of the Gospel (which he believes implicitly as soon as he can understand it), pray early to be saved (on the understanding that he can’t be saved until he has prayed a prayer), and be told that he is now a Christian—only to misbehave seriously enough a day or two later that before long, he is told he is not a Christian and the proof is his disobedience and rebellion. Then he can spend the next 10 or 12 or 16 years repeatedly praying for salvation, trying to believe “harder”, and working to live as a Christian should but so often failing, and all the while be convinced that he cannot possibly be a believer because if he were, he would surely be living like one by now! Baptism for this child is so far away as to be not worth even thinking about. It would be the crown to perhaps years of working to first prove his status as an actual “disciple”.
Contrast this with any of the Biblical examples we have of a Christian baptism. Take Lydia, or the jailer and his family, in Acts 16, or Simon the sorcerer or the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, or the Corinthians hearing of Crispus’s conversion in Acts 18. Each of these believed, was baptized, and seemingly then became part of the church. We read of no pre-baptism trial period, during which their lives were observed for evidence of true conversion. They believed and were baptized, and then we can safely assume that most began to gather with other local members of the church.
At such gatherings of the early church, those assembled might have heard this, written by the apostle Peter:
…giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.
Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Or this, written by the apostle Paul:
Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.
Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
Or this, from the epistle to the Hebrews:
For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings: partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated; for you had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven. Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward.
Could not any member of the congregation have heard these words and heeded the warnings, learned from the examples of “our fathers” the people of Israel, made his or her call and election sure? But suppose one were to pay no heed, refuse to learn, and not make one’s call and election sure? Was one then not part of the church to whom the epistle was written?
Relevant to our discussion here, had such ones never been baptized?
My point is not that a born-again believer can be lost, for he cannot (John 10:27-29). My point is that new disciples were baptized, and we have no evidence at all that the apostles themselves first set aside time to determine the genuineness of those disciples’ conversions. Because we as humans cannot know the heart, the standard of “only baptize true believers” in practice results in “only baptize credible professors” (and, sometimes, in re-baptism later on). If this was the apostles’ standard, is it not interesting that in the New Testament, we are never told of anyone being baptized in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, twice? And how are we to understand these warnings in the epistles?
The separate conversions and subsequent baptisms of believers’ children
In his epistles to the Colossian and Ephesian churches, Paul instructs children to obey their parents. In the epistle to the Ephesians, Paul says to “obey your parents in the Lord”. Surely these children were considered members of the church, alongside their parents. But since when were they considered so?
We might respond: “Paul only addressed children who had reached an age of reason—only they could have understood and obeyed the commands.” But at best, this would link the age of reason (or perhaps “age of accountability”) to a child’s being a member of the church: Paul doesn’t distinguish between believing and unbelieving children, or between baptized and unbaptized. He simply writes to “children”. Would every child have made a credible profession of faith by, at, or soon after the time he or she was able to understand the reading of Ephesians 6:1-3 or Colossians 3:20?
So at what point did these children enter the church? I can think of one simple possibility: when their parents did, or alternatively when the children themselves were born to believing parents. But set that possibility aside for a moment.
Where in the New Testament is a single specific example of a child born to believing parents who, after his parents’ conversion, himself is separately converted and then baptized? Where in the New Testament is a single instruction to parents about teaching toddlers, after these have reached the “age of accountability,” that they are now lost unbelievers unless and until they pray or profess faith on their own? (“Just give me one verse,” I tell my self and my lifelong view.)
Anthony N. S. Lane, in his fascinating paper “Did The Apostolic Church Baptise Babies? A Seismological Approach”:
…there is no single piece of evidence from the first two centuries of a child being brought up as a Christian and baptised at a later age. If the problem with infant baptism is inconclusive evidence that it happened in the first 150 years of the church, the problem with the alternative theory is total lack of evidence. It is true that the New Testament evidence for the baptism of infants is inconclusive, but at least there are passages which may plausibly be interpreted as implying that infants were baptised – such as Acts 16:33. By contrast there is no New Testament evidence at all for the later baptism of Christian children. There is no record of such a baptism and no hint in the epistles that such children should be seeking baptism.
This is critical, because are we not talking about the ideal situation in the church? Surely the ideal situation is Christian families: believing parents who raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and whose children themselves go on to do the same. If all children of Christian parents are expected to reach a clear moment of conversion, make a verbal profession of belief, and finally be baptized, then taken together, would these not make up the most pivotal and important events in a child’s life? Where in Scripture are we told or taught about this?
So have I made disciples of my children?
Look at the Lord’s command to His disciples at the end of Matthew—what is commonly called the Great Commission; I know this is a frequently-made point but it just seems important to me now:
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
How do you make a disciple? It seems to me, by baptizing and teaching. What if baptism, so far from being the crown to weeks or months or years of struggle to prove oneself a true believer, instead occurs at the beginning of a lifetime of discipleship?
I think that one reading of that text is: “make disciples, and once you have made a disciple, baptize and teach him.” Here is how Young’s Literal Translation puts verses 19-20: “having gone, then, disciple all the nations, (baptizing them — to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all, whatever I did command you,) and lo, I am with you all the days — till the full end of the age.”
In the part of the church that I come from, we emphasized what we called “family discipleship.” Christian parents were not only to shelter, clothe, feed, and educate their children; they were to disciple their children. This might involve what fathers are commanded in Ephesians 6:
Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
Naturally, we believed that parents were responsible to bring up their children to be disciples of the Lord Jesus, as the parents are disciples themselves. Probably few would dispute this. So a child is taught (and required) to pray, to obey Jesus’s commands, to be present at times of family worship and to join the gatherings of the local church. His life is expected to conform to what Scripture commands believers.
How do you “disciple” someone who you assume is an unbeliever? How can you bring up a tiny presumed unregenerate “in the training and instruction of the Lord”?
Who would deny that a lost adult man or woman must “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” to be “saved” (“you and your household”, the jailer in Philippi was told)? And who would wait to raise their baby boy or girl to follow the Lord Jesus until he or she could give sure evidence of new birth or make a “credible profession”?
While I am listing things I appreciate, this, from Jack K on the Puritan Board:
Where in the New Testament does it say discipleship should come before baptism? What I mean is: Do you plan to train a child from a young age in how he should live as a believer and then, at some point down the road, baptize him later on? Isn’t that backwards of what the Scripture teaches in every example of Christian baptism in the New Testament? In every case, baptism comes at the beginning, as a prelude to discipleship.
Without getting into proof texts, a sort of conclusion
I wonder now how much these questions—who to baptize, when to baptize, whether to re-baptize, etc.—have to do with what one believes that baptism is. Is it me doing something as a believer? Is it just “getting wet”? Is that consistent with Scripture?
Dumbly, for most of my Christian life I hardly thought much at all about some of the New Testament descriptions of baptism. I was recently struck by this, by Plymouth Brethren leader (and fairly notable Dispensationalist) J. N. Darby in “On the Baptism of Households”:
If life were implied in baptism, would it not have been written, “Arise, and be baptized, because your sins are washed away”? Again it is said, “Repent, and be baptized, for the remissions of sins,” not “because your sins are remitted,” which is the ground taken by those who refuse baptism for any but believers. “They that gladly received the word were baptized,” and it was “for the remission of sins”; that is to say, they could not be acknowledged as outwardly free from sin until they had in type died in the waters of death, and waters of baptism (1 Peter 3:20, 22), “wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by waters!” etc.
Here are statements first that Noah was saved by water. He entered the ark before the flood and God shut him in, and he was as safe as God could make him; but no one could say he was yet saved, and the word says he was “saved by water; the like figure,” etc. As the water was God’s judgment by which the world was overwhelmed, Noah goes through it. He enters the ark in the old world, goes through the water, the judgment, and comes out in the new world. He could not be saved, but by going through. the waters of death through which he who accepted God’s judgment is called to pass, and which “doth now save us.” Noah could not be saved but by going through the judgment, he could not be brought to stand in the new world except through the flood; neither can we be brought into outward connection with the new man except we go through Christ’s death in a figure. “The like figure now saves us.” Then we are not saved outwardly without it.
Darby continues:
Believing, then, that the first man is entirely condemned and judicially ended in the death of Christ, baptism is faith’s acceptance of this judgment that if God has given me children they are born not in connection with the second man, but in the nature of the first, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh.” Believing that these children, though thus born in sin and in the nature of the first man, the ended man, are to be trained for God, brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (He who has attained that Lordship by death); it is the privilege of faith to reckon such as judicially ended, to start from the death of Christ, remembering what God thinks of that death, that it is either salvation or judgment, that in it is displayed the righteousness of God which is unto all but is only upon all which believe. “We are unto God a sweet savour,” etc. (2 Cor. 2:10, 15).
And:
I own that the death of Christ has ended the first man, that in that death this child, as part of the first man, was judged. I own that all hope is in the second man. I submit it to Christ’s death, which shall be of necessity either its salvation or its judgment. But, blessed be God, He encourages me to believe it shall not be judgment but salvation. He is not willing that any should perish. He has given me Christ for myself, and presents Christ for the acceptance of my children not to be their condemnation. He tells me to bring them up for Him “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” He tells me to “train up a child,” etc. (Prov. 22:6). The little ones belong to Christ. He has redeemed them. He said, “Suffer little children,” etc.
(Small sigh.)
By way of acknowledging that this entire question won’t really be resolved by a single “proof text”, I end with this, from his conclusion:
…if there is nothing [in Scripture] about children being baptized there is something and very much about the baptism of households, not because they were believers – they may or may not have been – but because they were households. There is a principle running through Scripture from beginning to end, and one may do well to examine it. You ask: How is it that these things are not known? That godly men refuse to baptize any but believers? That there was much darkness and confusion about that which concerns the simplest child of God?
The Church as “the pillar and the ground of truth” has failed: departed from single-eyed allegiance to Christ: ceased to walk by faith: has fallen back upon nature to walk by sight. We are in the last days. The Church of God is in ruins. The truth has been hidden, covered over with the dust of centuries: but God has been graciously removing the dust, leading the saints back to the word and restoring to them the glorious truths therein. … Fearful of regeneration, we have rushed to another extreme and, knowing [baptism] could never give life, have denied that it now saves. Beneath the dust, and apart from the ruin, the word of God is bright and luminous as ever.
Blog Of My Sojourn 