A few weeks ago at my church, Redeemer Waco, we had a debate of sorts about baptism. We had a wonderful local baptist pastor come in to present his position against infant baptism. Then our head pastor presented our position on why we also baptize infants. The goal of the night was to help our church understand our position and grow in their own convictions. You can find the event recording here. In light of the event, I wanted to present a case for infant baptism here. So, here we go…
I think it is vital to know a few things about the place from which I am writing about infant baptism. First and quite frankly, the baby-baptizing world was foreign and weird and made no sense. Isn’t baptism only for those that make a profession of faith? Isn’t baptism, by definition, merely a public profession to the world of your faith in Jesus? It was not until I found myself in the Reformed church world that I had to start thinking about infant baptism because I learned that it is not just the Catholics baptizing babies. It is Lutherans, Methodists, and Presbyterians too, to name a few.
Second, I write as a convinced questioner. I am now convinced babies of at least one believing parent in the church ought to be baptized. The more I talk and think about it, the more convinced I become. When I hear again the opposing arguments against it, arguments I understand and am sympathetic towards, the more I am convinced of infant baptism. But I’m a convinced questioner. “Don’t baptize babies” is so ingrained in me from my childhood and early adult years that still my brain sounds like this at times: “Are you sure about this? This is so different than everything you knew growing up!” I understand why so many Christians don’t baptize their infants. After all, the arguments for and against infant baptism are not explicit but implicit in the Bible.
As I proceed into making a case for infant baptism you have to know two things:
1. The arguments for and against infant baptism are not explicit. You won’t find a verse that says “baptize infants”. And you won’t find a verse that says “don’t baptize infants”. Understanding infant baptism requires understanding larger biblical realities and concepts as well as specific verses.
2. In no way am I saying here that baptism magically saves people. Just as someone can hear the Gospel and reject it, so an infant can be baptized and grow up to reject what baptism is about, which is ultimately Jesus’ mercy. Baptism is “preaching” the Gospel in a visible way. And people can grow up to reject the Gospel.
Alright, here’s why I am convinced of infant baptism. First, I see continuity between circumcision and baptism. Second, I view children of believers as automatic members of God’s visible church.
First, I am convinced there is continuity between circumcision and baptism. What was circumcision? Circumcision was given to Abraham (in the Abrahamic covenant) as “a sign of the covenant between me and you” (Gen. 17:11). Circumcision is a sign that you are in a grace-based covenant relationship with God. Circumcision is not, as many opponents of infant baptism argue, merely an ethnic or political sign. It was a sign of God’s grace. Speaking of Abraham, Paul says in Rom. 4:11, “He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.” In other words, circumcision was a sign of faith, faith that receives imputed righteousness from God. No, Jesus had not shown up, died, and rose yet in Abraham’s time. But Abraham was saved by Jesus through faith, nonetheless. His faith looked forward to Jesus. Our faith looks backward. Circumcision was principally a sign and seal of salvation in Christ.
Now, who was this sign given to? Believers and theirnewborns. Let this sink in: under the Old Covenant God explicitly commanded the sign of faith to be given to infants who were not conscious of the covenant. God explicitly commanded the sign of faith to be given to infants not making a public profession of their personal faith. So, even if you disagree with it, Christians baptizing babies isn’t as crazy as you might think.
What does that have to do with baptism? Well, the New Covenant is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant, with circumcision and the Passover meal, was a “shadow” of the realities of Christ to come (Heb. 8:5; 10:1). The Passover meal finds its fulfillment in the Lord’s Supper. What does circumcision find its fulfillment in? Baptism. Baptism replaces circumcision as the sign of faith. Col. 2:11-13 shows this continuity: “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses…” What is the outward sign of the “circumcision of Christ”? Baptism.
It is here that opponents of infant baptism will say that circumcision was not replaced by baptism. Many will say that circumcision was replaced by the inward filling of the Holy Spirit. However, this says that circumcision was never about inward realities in the first place, which is false. Rom. 2:28-29 says, “For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.” In other words, circumcision was never merely or even primarily just an external ethnic and/or political sign. It was always “a matter of the heart, by the Spirit”. Circumcision was always about people being brought from death to life through faith in Christ.
To show this in real time, consider the end of Peter’s sermon in Acts 2. We’re told in Acts 2:37-39, “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?’ 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. 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.’” Consider that Peter was speaking to a Jewish audience quite familiar with the reality that infants of Jews are given the sign of faith (circumcision). This was their personal practice. Peter is telling them that the shadow of the Old Covenant has been fulfilled in the reality of Christ and the sign of the promise is now baptism. Now, imagine how Jews would have naturally thought: for thousands of years the sign of the covenant (circumcision) was to be given to infants of believers. Surely the sign of New Covenant (baptism) is to be given also to infants of believers. Why would infants suddenly be cut out from the sign?
As they would be naturally thinking this way, Peter then says, “For the promise is for you and for your children…” Peter specifically identifies children, just as Gen. 17 did with circumcision. Jews hearing him would have naturally thought, if the promise is for me and I believe it, then I should receive the sign of the promise (baptism). And if the promise is for my children, my children should also receive the sign of the promise (baptism), just as they have for thousands of years.
Here we must ask: if in the shadow (Old Covenant) infants were given the sign of God’s grace, why would they suddenly be cut out from receiving the sign when the substance of the shadow (Jesus) has actually arrived in the New Covenant?
There is my first major point. Let’s move to my second. Second, I view children of believers as automatic members of God’s visible church. By visible church, I am referring to all professing Christians alive today, gathered in local churches. And baptism is the entrance sign when someone joins God’s visible church. In the Reformed world, we view children not like an unbeliever outside the church but as a member of God’s visible church by birth. No, this does not mean we believe children are saved by merely being born to Christian parents. But children born to believing parents are welcomed into the visible church and we treat them like believers. We raise them with the hope and assumption that they will come to faith and never know a day when they did not believe in Jesus.
Just as members of God’s church receive the sign of the New Covenant (baptism), so children who are born into visible membership receive the sign of baptism. Futhermore, there is a special reality at work with children born to believing parents. 1 Cor. 7:14 calls them “holy”. “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.” Again, this is not saying children are born already born-again or that they will automatically come to faith. We aren’t talking about magic here. But it is saying they are set apart, in one sense, in being children of a believer or believers. As such, they are given the sign of the covenant for those in the visible church.
Now, I want to circle back to a preface already made because I think the following is one of the biggest obstacles for people considering infant baptism. After hearing those two points you may still be thinking: does this all mean that if my baby is baptized they will be automatically saved? And if not, what’s even the point? They don’t even know it’s happening and won’t remember it. What is the point and power in that?
First, no, baptism does not automatically save someone. Think about it like this: do we preach the Gospel and think that if someone hears our preaching they will definitely be saved? No. We know that people can and do resist Jesus. Similarly, do we baptize people and think that if someone is baptized they definitely are saved? No. We know that people can and do resist Jesus, whom baptism is about. It is Jesus who saves us. Jesus alone saves through faith in Him.
So, if it doesn’t automatically save them, why baptize them? Here’s my real simple answer to add to all that I’ve already said: before your baby knows English and can understand you, do you tell them, “Jesus loves you, lived for you, died for you, and rose for you?” Do you sing to them, “Jesus loves you this I know, for the Bible tells me so…”? Of course! We do those things even though our infants can’t understand us, don’t know what’s going on, and won’t remember any of it. We know God is at work in the preaching of the Gospel, so we preach! God is at work already in the lives of our babies as we preach the Gospel to them. He is after them already, before they are conscious of Him! This is beautiful.
Likewise, when we baptize our infants in the name of Jesus before they can understand it, God is at work in their lives. God is in pursuit of them. God gave them at least one believing parent to teach them the Gospel before they can understand it. When they grow up to understand it all you can tell them that before you knew it, before you knew of Him, before you ever looked His way, He was after you. He was offering Jesus to you. He placed you in His church family that you might never know a day of not trusting Him and not living in His grace.
This is infant baptism: He claimed you before you knew who He was. So, trust Him.
