This week we’re continuing to look at when baptism should be done or part 2 of “The Case for Infant Baptism.” [Btw, the picture above is of my grandson, Theodore Jonathan Ginchereau (Theo). He’s my daughter, Emily, and Josh’s son whom you might remember was born two months premature in March. We’re so grateful that he is doing great now with absolutely no health issues! 🙂 )
Here are the rest of the reasons I’ve found the case for infant baptism compelling:
4. We are assured that that covenant blessings are extended to the children of the believing parent or parents in some way:
“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.”
1 Corinthians 7:14, ESV
This verse makes the most sense against the backdrop of covenant theology and a belief in infant baptism where the visible church includes “every person in the world professing faith in Jesus Christ and their children [italics mine].”[1] Bryan Chapell’s observations are noteworthy: “Few verses in Scripture more forcefully indicate that God communicates his grace to children while they are in the household of a covenant parent… While children remain under the authority of a covenant parent, they are covenantally represented by their parent’s faith.”[2]
5. The baptizing of entire households (which probably included children) gives further evidence for infant baptism, and against those who deny it (Acts 16:15, 33; 1 Cor. 1:16). It clearly shows that the covenant of grace, as in the OT, extended to the whole family—not just the individual.
6. Anthony Lane, Professor of Historical Theology at London School of Theology observes: “The surviving Christian literature from the first five centuries gives no hint anywhere that anyone objected in principle to infant baptism, that anyone considered it improper, irregular or invalid. If it were a postapostolic innovation, this silence is remarkable…No single piece of evidence from the first two centuries portrays a child brought up as a Christian but baptized 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.”[3]
7. “As the Bible sees it, baptism is not primarily a sign of repentance and faith on the part of the baptized. It is not a sign of anything that we do at all. It is a covenant sign (like circumcision, but without blood-shedding), and therefore a sign of the work of God on our behalf which precedes and makes possible our own responsive movement. It is a sign of gracious election of the Father who plans and established the covenant… [Gen.12:1; Jer. 7:23; John 15:16] The elective will of God in Christ extends to those who are afar off as well as nigh, and the sign of it may be extended not only to those who have responded, but to their children growing up in a sphere of the divine choice and calling.”[4]
8. Many out of genuine concern for the purity of the church have insisted on a “regenerate church membership;” that is, a membership that consists of only people who have made a genuine profession of faith and love Jesus with all of their hearts. Those who insist on this exclude children because they are not yet old enough to express a genuine profession of faith. Although, again, rooted in a concern for the purity of God’s church, this insistence is both unrealistic and unbiblical. A more realistic and Scriptural perspective takes into account the arguments for infant baptism above as well as the distinction between the invisible and the visible church. The invisible church consists of all the elect past, present, and future- those who are truly born again and these individuals are known only to God. In the visible church, however, we have many who love Jesus but we also have “mingled many hypocrites who have nothing of Christ but the name and outward appearance.”[5] Just because someone made a profession of faith or was circumcised under the old covenant, becoming part of visible Israel, did not mean they were part of God’s invisible Israel, the elect (Rom. 9:6-7). In the same way, just because someone makes a profession of faith or is baptized as an infant or adult under the new covenant, becoming part of the visible church, does not mean they are part of God’s invisible church, the elect (Heb. 6:4-9). Only God can see the heart and for now the wheat and the tares must grow together (Matt. 13:24-30). Children of believing parents, however, should not be excluded from membership in God’s family just because we can’t yet see their hearts or one day they might reveal themselves to be apostate (those who are not truly saved- those who fall away). Rather they should be welcomed fully in the spirit of Jesus (Matt. 10:13-16) into His body, the visible church on earth.
9. For 1800 years, many good and godly men and women (reformed and non-reformed), who would defend the authority of Scripture with their lives, have held or hold to the practice of infant baptism: Cyprian, Origen, Ambrose, Athanasius, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Francis of Assisi, Thomas a Kempis, Teresa of Avila, Bernard of Clairvaux, John Knox, John Calvin, Martin Luther, Matthew Henry, Jonathan Edwards, Susanna Wesley, John Wesley, George Whitefield, G.K. Chesterton, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martyn Lloyd Jones, Dorothy Sayers, C.S. Lewis, Mother Theresa, James Boice, J.I. Packer, R.C. Sproul, John Stott, James Kennedy, Alister McGrath, Fleming Rutledge, Tish Harrison Warren, etc. Again, we see post-apostolic evidence that infant baptism was being done in the early 200’s and it has certainly been the dominant view for most of church history.
Next week, we’ll look at why baptism should it be done.
[1] 25:2 of the Contemporary Edition of the Westminster Confession of Faith (Presby Press) 2002, 73.
[2] Bryan Chapell, Why Do We Baptize Infants? (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing) 2006, 10. I’ve found this small volume extremely helpful in helping believer’s with a Baptistic background understand the legitimacy of infant baptism. Also, its practical and pastoral tone set it apart as a favorite.
[3] Baptism: Three Views (Downers Grove: IVP Academic) 2009, 160.
[4] G.W. Bromily, Elwell Evangelical Dictionary.
[5] Calvin, Institutes, 4.1.7.