I was asked recently to write a letter to my favorite podcast, The Gospel Friends, by the guys who host the show, to defend / make a case for infant baptism. A position which I have very recently adopted as my own. This is the first time I have talked about this issue publicly since my convictions have changed from credobaptist to paedobaptist. The following is my letter to The Gospel Friends:
A Few Preliminary Remarks
Obviously volumes can and have been said on this debate and there will not be time on your show to discuss this at the kind of length that would be necessary to answer every question or objection that could be raised. For that reason I am simply outlining what I see to be some of the major issues and arguments for paedobaptism, and I will answer a few objections leveled against it. Before I get to the body of the argument I did want to give you just a little bit of my background so you can understand better where I am coming from.
I came to know Christ at 15 and became involved in the charismatic/pentecostal movement. The group I was in initially was indefensibly unbiblical in its practices (I was taught to speak in tongues by the pastor, I saw people rolling on the floor, falling over everywhere, flags whistling by your head, ‘holy laughter’, and every other chaotic thing you can think of that 1 Cor. 14 would have squashed had the Bible been read). I got uncomfortable with that stuff the more I read my Bible, I eventually moved to a charismatic church that was a lot more toned down. Eventually I moved to a new town after getting married and started attending a Southern Baptist Church and started working in the youth ministry. I was eventually called as the youth pastor there and during that time I became a full cessationist (I still lean that direction but have realized the Holy Spirit is also not on vacation). Since that time I have been in ministry for about 11 ½ years. 10 of those years were in Baptist churches, 8 ½ of them were in Southern Baptist churches specifically. I was ordained as a Southern Baptist minister and have been fairly active within the SBC, attending local association meetings, state meetings, and Convention wide meetings.
All of that to say my background is diverse, but none of it was anything like Presbyterian. I have been the guy that says “love those presbyterians like Ligon Duncan, but man are they off about baptism. How can guys who know the Bible so well be so wrong?” So I am writing to you as one who has only very recently (in the last 6 months) become convinced that the Presbyterian view of baptism is correct and biblical. I have been a Calvinist for quite a while now, but I utterly rejected covenant theology for a long time and that was primarily because I did not understand it. Since I have embraced covenant theology I feel that I see the Bible with a greater unity and clarity than I used to. Holes that had been in my theology for years got filled in. So that’s my story. Here is my argument for paedobaptism.
What is the difference between my kids and my pagan neighbor’s kids?
As a parent of four kids (number 4 due in July) I have been very concerned to see my children raised to know and love the Lord. But one of the questions I have struggled with is how do I address my kids? I believe in the doctrine of original sin and the depravity of man and I believe that my kids need to repent from their sin and trust in Jesus to be saved just like everyone else. But does that mean I treat my kids as unbelievers just as the child growing up in a pagan household? Or is there something different about the children of Christians that ‘sets them apart’ from the rest?
The first passage of Scripture that really hit me hard when it comes to covenant theology was 1 Corinthians 7:10-14.
10 To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband 11 (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife. 12 To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. 13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
I’ve always had trouble making sense of this passage in the past. What does it mean that the unbelieving spouse and children are made “holy” by the believing spouse? The word holy means, of course, to be set apart. But set apart in what way? It does not guarantee their personal salvation just because they have a believing spouse or parent; too much Scripture speaks against such an idea. But what does it mean?
The best way to understand this is to say that the believing spouse brings covenant grace to the whole family. The family is recognized by the Lord as a covenant family because of the believing spouse. So the children of even one believer, all the more of two believers, are set apart as holy to the Lord. The children of the righteous are not the same as the children of pagans who are separated from the promises of the covenant. The children of believers are holy and are to be raised as Christians. Note I am not saying that they are justified, made right with God, merely by relationship to their believing parent(s) alone. But they are to be considered as holy, belonging to the Lord, set apart from the world in a covenant way.
Christians should speak to their children about things as “what we believe as Christians.” How we live our lives “not like those in the world who do not know God.” We should speak to our children with the expectation that they do believe as far as they understand and will believe when they fully grasp the gospel. We should not talk to our children as if they are in a totally different category from ourselves. Christian families are not half Christian and half pagan until the kids express repentance and faith, they are all set apart as holy and in visible covenant relationship with the Lord.
Abraham and the Covenant of Grace
We all know the beautiful picture of God’s grace in Abraham’s life which we see in Genesis 15:3-6
3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir;your very own son shall be your heir.” 5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
This passage is wonderful proof that the gospel of salvation by grace through faith is not a New Testament idea, it is a Bible idea. Salvation by grace through faith has always been the way God saves people. The law was never intended to save but to show people their need for God’s grace and to make them cling to him. Abraham believed God’s promise and was counted as righteous by faith apart from works of the law and before he was circumcised.
But here is the big question. What is the point of circumcision? Obviously it is not salvific because Abraham is justified by faith, not by the work of circumcision. So then what is its purpose? Paul answers this question in Romans 4:11-12
He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, 12 and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.
So, according to Paul, circumcision was received by Abraham “as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was uncircumcised.” Circumcision points to the righteousness that is acquired by faith. Circumcision does not point to the person, or the faith of the person, but to the righteousness that comes by faith. Whose righteousness is that? Christ’s righteousness (Romans 3:23-26).
Now when we talk about baptism, as a good Baptist, I always said “Baptism is an outward expression of an inward reality.” Which is to say that it is an outward picture of the washing away of sins and regeneration which, for a believer being baptized, is absolutely true. It wouldn’t be true if we baptized a baby though, would it? It’s not a reality for them yet. So if we baptize an infant it has to be something a little different than an outward sign pointing to an inward reality. And with Abraham, whom we could rightly say about his circumcision that it was an outward sign of an inward reality (that is an inward reality of a circumcised heart Deut 30:6), it is the same. Circumcision for him, as a believer, would be different from the circumcision of an infant.
But here is the thing, Abraham was commanded to circumcise his infant son and the male descendants thereafter. Why? Those children are not believers yet. In fact many of those children, as the Old Testament abounds in examples of, never became believers and were lost to hell. So why are they to be circumcised and what does their circumcision do for them? It points them to the righteousness that can be had by faith, just as Abraham received the righteousness of God by faith. Circumcision is a sign of God’s covenant promise to save all who believe just like Abraham did. Children in the Old Covenant were called to live in light of their circumcision, to remember who they are as the covenant people of God, to express faith in the Lord just like Abraham.
Baptism as the sign of the New Covenant
Few Christian theologians disagree with the following statement. “Circumcision was the sign of the Old Covenant, baptism replaces that symbol as the sign of the New Covenant.” I hope it is safe to assume that you would agree with me there.
As a Baptist I argued that this was indeed the case but that one of the major points of difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant was the way God gathered his covenant people. I would have said God had a national/ethnic people as his covenant people then and people were born into covenant relationship in the Old Testament whereas now God gathers people into covenant relationship as individuals, not by means of a national ethnic people. Born into covenant in the Old Testament, added to the covenant by personal faith in the New Testament.
In some ways that is true. There is no doubt that the true elect of God (spiritual Israel) are gathered individually as God calls them to himself by His Spirit (John 6:37, 44), and it is true that God had a nation of people set apart for himself in the Old Testament and worked through the Jewish people primarily. It is further true that now the church is a multi-national, multi-ethnic group made up of all believers and is not tied to a particular nation or ethnic group.
But here is what I was doing wrong. I was failing to see the distinction between the visible and invisible church, between national Israel and Spiritual Israel. As Paul writes in Romans 9:6-8
6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
God has always had his true people within the visible people. Israel as a nation was the visible people of God, but not all of them were true Israelites spiritually. In our churches today we have a visible community but not all in our midst are really believers just as Jesus notes in Matthew 7, “many will come to me saying Lord, Lord”.
So the reality is this, God is not gathering his people differently in the New Covenant than he was in the Old Covenant. There is a visible community and within that visible community there are genuine believers and others not so genuine, even though outwardly they are referred to as God’s people, the Church. We may speak of the church as the bride of Christ while knowing that not all who take part in the visible church really belong to him.
So then, since baptism is the sign of the new covenant, replacing circumcision, to whom should it be applied? It should be applied to the visible church, all who belong to it by proclamation of faith or by virtue of being born into it. It is not to say that they are thereby saved, but it is to say that baptism is the mark of those in covenant relationship with God under the New Covenant and the children of believers are in covenant with the Lord because they are holy to him (1 Cor. 7).
The problem of discontinuity
Imagine yourself to be a Jewish believer in Yahweh who is listening to Peter preach at Pentecost. As the people are cut to the heart by the gospel message the following unfolds in Acts 2:37-39
37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
Now, you’re a Jew...what did you just hear? Who is this promise of salvation for? It’s for me, and for my children, and for all people that the Lord will call. What is the sign that accompanies the promise of salvation to those who repent and believe? Baptism.
I’m a Jew. I am in covenant with Yahweh. My children are in covenant with Yahweh and I have circumcised them as covenant children to point them towards the righteousness that comes by faith in the Lord, just like Abraham. God is doing something new, something greater, something bigger. It’s a promise to me and to my children and all who are far off. Sounds like the Old Covenant, just even better.
One way the New Covenant is better is that its application is wider. Baptism is not just for male children but for all my children. In Christ we are all adopted as sons with full rights. But the last thing that Jewish believer thinks is this:
“My kids were holy and in covenant with Yahweh, and now they are cut off from the covenantal blessings until they are old enough to repent.”
That is not what they heard. It is not what was said. And if it were the case that the covenant sign of baptism (the sign that marks them as belonging to the Lord in covenant relationship) was not to be applied to their children then it would need to be explicitly taught. But it is not taught. In fact it is not even implied anywhere.
The Jewish convert to Christianity would have understood that the promise and the sign of the promise was for his whole family, even his children.
Some objections:
- You don’t see any infant baptism in Scripture.
Certainly this was one of my primary arguments against infant baptism as a Baptist. I mean, case closed right? I thought so. But put on a fresh pair of lenses and look again. I am not arguing that there are any clear instances of infant baptism and I am even willing to admit there may actually be no instances where it is seen at all. There are a few cases where it is at least possible that there were infants baptized, but it’s altogether unclear either way. The text does not explicitly say there were no babies baptized nor does it explicitly say that everyone was older and everyone believed. For instance you have household conversions in the New Testament. Just one example is Acts 16:30-34 and the Philippian jailer:
30 Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. 34 Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.
Again, it may certainly be the case that all in his household were older, and all expressed personal faith in Jesus. But that is an assumption. If paedobaptism is correct nothing in this text forbids the idea of his children receiving baptism. Also it is interesting that the text says “he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.” The emphasis is on his faith and conversion even though the whole household was baptized. The idea of corporate family solidarity as opposed to the individuality of our culture is an issue to consider. In the Old Testament there are numerous cases when a head of household made a decision which affected the whole family, either in conversion to Israel and all are circumcised (down to the servants) or in situations like Achan’s sin where the whole family pays for his sin.
So this may be a case where there is infant baptism, it may be a case where all are older and all believe personally. The issue is that the text can fit both paradigms without any trouble. The other thing I would say is that all of the baptisms you see in the New Testament are of first generation Christians. There is no example in the New Testament of a baptism of a second generation Christian. Even paedobaptists believe in believers baptism when they have not been reared in the home of saints.
One last point here. Everywhere you see baptism in the New Testament where names are mentioned (as opposed to the more than 3,000 at pentecost) it is a household baptism. The only exceptions are the Ethiopian eunuch (for obvious reasons) and Simon the magician (who actually shows himself to be unregenerate although baptized). The corporate solidarity of the family (the household can be more than just blood relatives in Scripture) is a huge aspect in Scripture, both Old and New Testaments and it is often easily overlooked.
- Baptism means immersion...so there!
Some will point out that the primary lexical definition of the Greek word baptizo is “to immerse”, so that settles it. Nobody thinks we ought to put 8 day old babies under the water so the discussion is over since sprinkling and pouring are out by definition (actually the Eastern Orthodox apparently do full immersion for babies I’m told…). Well, it would end the conversation (for most of us) except for the fact that the word baptizo is used numerous times in the New Testament to refer to situations where immersion is not in view.
Mark 7:4 “and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.)”
The word used for “washing” is a form of the word baptizo. But it is very unlikely that they are completely immersing entire dining couches. Likewise in Luke 11:38 “The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner.” It is not likely that the pharisee was astonished that Jesus did not fully immerse himself before dinner, but that he didn’t wash his hands like we typically think of. In 1 Corinthians 10:2 baptism is referred to in relationship to crossing the red sea and being in the cloud (no one even got wet). Basically nowhere in the New Testament does the word baptism get defined as immersion, it is an a priori assumption that is read into the text. It most certainly can mean immersion, it may often mean immersion, but it does not have to mean that.
- Unregenerate church membership is dangerous.
It definitely can be. But it is also an undeniable reality. As we have already said there are tares among the wheat. People who name the name of Jesus whom Jesus does not know. The visible church is always mixed with the elect of God and those who are lost. But the children of believers, while unregenerate until they repent and believe, are set apart as holy and are a part of the church. They are (in Presbyterian terms) non-communicant members until they profess faith in Christ personally. But they are covenant members of God’s household and to be treated as such until or unless they actually reject the Lord and then they are to be dealt with as unbelievers.
The problem of nominalism, which comes from unregenerate people in the church, is not just a problem for churches who practice infant baptism and non-communicant membership. Although the idea in credo-baptist circles is that every member is a committed believer, the reality is that many credo-baptist churches are very nominal and have a mix of true believers and lost but professing individuals. Nominalism is not caused by paedobaptism it is caused by sin and lack of faithfulness in biblical teaching and preaching. In Reformed circles the non-communicant member of the church holds no possibility of teaching or influence in the church, only those who have expressed faith in Christ and repentance from sin can hold offices or teach in the church. Lack of faithful exposition of Scripture and holding the line on truth is what causes churches to sink.
- Infant baptism will confuse people and give them false assurance of salvation.
It could easily do that if the church fails to be faithful in the consistent preaching of the word of God. But there are also credo-baptists who wrongly assume their baptism has saved them and they are good-to-go. The truth is if a church teaches faithfully and consistently that baptism does not save you, only repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus saves you, then this shouldn’t be a problem. Faithful Reformed preaching tells people they need to live in light of what their baptism points to, the righteousness of Christ that can be theirs by faith. They do not have a righteousness to themselves, their baptism does not save them or infuse them with grace, but that it is a sign of God’s covenant to save them if they will repent and believe the gospel.
It is important to distinguished the Reformed/Presbyterian understanding of paedobaptism from Roman Catholic paedobaptism and Lutheran paedobaptism which do teach that baptism is salvific in nature. Roman Catholics and Lutherans believe it washes away original sin, the Reformed/Presbyterians do not believe that. Both RC’s and Lutherans practice confirmation where the non-communicant member is confirmed at a particular age, Reformed/Presbyterians do not. A person becomes a communicant member when, and only when, they personally express repentance and faith, there is no age in particular.
- Jesus was baptized as an adult.
True story. But something needs to be considered here. John’s baptism is not the same baptism Jesus commands in the Great Commission. Baptism was a relatively common ceremonial practice in Jewish circles as a symbol of cleansing and preparation, but Jesus instituted a Trinitarian baptism for the church to use which was different. The baptism of John, which Jesus was baptized with, is not synonymous with the baptism Jesus later commanded after the New Covenant had been inaugurated by his death.
A final thought
In credo-baptist circles baptism is said to point to the believer’s faith in Jesus. In paedobaptist circles baptism is said to point to the righteousness of Christ itself that can be appropriated by faith. That is to say that as a paedobaptist I am arguing that we should see baptism primarily in terms of a visible seal of the covenant that points people toward the righteousness of Christ that is received by faith. We should not make baptism about the one who has believed but about the one whom we are to believe in (Christ).
Thank you for letting me write to you. I know that this may not convince anyone but I hope it is helpful for discussion on the show. I love you guys as brothers and I appreciate your show, the laughs and the good discussion. If you would like to follow up on any of this with me at some point I would be glad to clarify any point or answer any questions I can. My email is jacob.allee84@gmail.com and I welcome correspondence about this if you’d like. Here are some recommended resources for further study if you so desire:
Sproul on paedobaptism
Dennis E. Johnson on paedobaptism
Liam Goligher on changing his mind towards paedobaptim
Kevin Deyoung’s short article on Paedobaptism which includes further resources:
http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2015/03/12/a-brief-defense-of-infant-baptism/ 