Paedobaptism Article

The following is a brief article I wrote a few months ago which defends and advocates the position of paedobaptism. The complete title of the essay is: "Exulting in the Glorious Unity Between the Old and New Covenants Through God's Faithfulness to All Generations Displayed in the Sign and Seal of Household Baptism." I have republished it here for your edification.

While there is an increasing tendency among members of both the credobaptism (believer baptism) and paedobaptism (infant baptism) groups to speak past one another and to insist that the burden of proof falls on the opposing side to justify their position, this will not be my approach. In order to breed better understanding of the subject matter at hand, special pleading should be exempt from all our discussion regarding such a polemical issue. It has been said that this is an intramural debate. This is true. As Christians, both sides believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, its authority in faith and practice, and its perspicuity in all of its teaching. Thus, should we be found in error, we must be ready to conform our life to the entirety of Scripture's doctrine, what is conveyed by the latin phrase tota scriptura. With this in mind, let us assume the attitude of the Bereans as we approach this difficult matter and be prepared to search the Scriptures daily to find out whether or not these things are so (Acts 17:11).

In the following argument, I will not appeal to the early church fathers and their views as the basis for my position. Though such a study would be profitable, it falls beyond the scope of this article. Moreover, while the church fathers are an authority they are not an infallible one. Should I demonstrate beyond any significant doubt that the notion of individual admission to the covenant community divorced from the household administration would have been virtually unintelligible to the ancient church, one could still respond that the consensus was in error and not in accord with the truth of Scripture. And while we frown upon such a reactionary stance towards the authority of church tradition and history as a guide, we cannot fault those who seek warrant from the only, ultimately trustworthy guide: the Holy Writ. Neither in this argument will you find any reference to the mode of baptism, as such discussions tend only to wander into lexical fallacies regarding the meaning of the Greek word baptismo. The reader should not anticipate a thoroughgoing investigation of John's Baptism either (cf. Matthew 3:1-17; Luke 3:7-22). The simple reason for this is because John's Baptism is a baptism of repentance and is not Christian Baptism. Christian Baptism was a positive institution made by our Lord Jesus Christ in the context of the Great Commission (cf. Matthew 28:18-20). Therefore again, John's Baptism, while intriguing, does not fall into the range of our discussion.

Before I present my thesis, it is necessary to clarify a rule of interpretation that, if followed, I believe will erase all doubt concerning this issue. The historic, Reformed hermeneutic that is seldom applied when approaching the topic of baptism is that a Biblical paradigm or precedent is not nullified unless specifically stated to be abrogated. This Paul makes abundantly clear when arguing with the Judaizers about how the law cannot make void God's covenant with Abraham (cf. Galatians 3:17). For a principle to be changed, there must be clear and obvious warrant. Such is the case with such radical changes as the repealing of the dietary laws (cf. Acts 9:11-16; 1 Timothy 4:4-5) and the Levitical priesthood (cf. Hebrews 7:11-19), both of which needed explicit Scriptural mandates that declared their annulment. Even in the case of Gentile inclusion in the New Covenant, which has substantial Old Testament evidence (cf. Psalm 2:7; Isaiah 66:23; Joel 2:28), there needed to be consistent, unambiguous teaching on this matter (cf. Acts 15:1-29; Romans 1:16; Galatians 3:26-29; Ephesians 3:1-7; Rev. 5:9). We need then to seriously examine what the paradigm was concerning God and His covenantal dealings with man and whether or not this was abrogated in the New Testament. Did God make covenants primarily with individuals alone or with individuals and their children? I believe the answer that we will find in Scripture to be most enlightening.

Because the sacrament of baptism was both an explicit and positive institution established by the Lord Jesus Christ, the evidence must be overwhelming if we are to include our children as recipients of this covenantal sign. The stakes are extremely high. I believe that under close scrutiny the household baptism principle will prove not only to be the more Biblical position but be an inescapable imperative upon all Christians who desire to raise their children in the "training and admonition of the Lord" (Eph. 6:4). And rightfully so, for we must never concede to a position just because it appears to be the more Biblical one but because the data of Scripture commands our conscience so that we are, as Martin Luther so eloquently put it at the Diet of Worms in 1521, "held captive to the Word of God." The Regulative Principle demands as such. With that said, we must recognize that we obtain our doctrine not from apostolic command alone but from apostolic example as well. The apostolic precedent established consistently throughout the early church is that of administering the means of grace to entire households. Clouding much of our thinking, is this post-Enlightenment idea of individualism. Many of these Lockean categories of thought would have been just as foreign and strange to the apostolic church as the cultural practices of first century Palestine are to us today. We must never read them back into the text. To do so is to commit flagrant eisegesis. It is my strong belief that this is what is done in most credobaptist circles today. Such anachronism only serves to distort the Scriptures. Instead, I am convinced that the position of infant baptism serves to best demonstrate the internal consistency of Scripture, because the corporate mindset behild the Old Covenant is never removed in the New Covenant but is rather confirmed.

From the outset of Scripture, we see God initiating and establishing this corporate mindset. As we have heard many a time before, the first reference we have in the creation account from Genesis 1 of anything not being good is Adam's isolation, or, dare I say, his individualism. It is God's decision to create a helpmate for Adam that institutes the corporate mindset as we find in Adam and Eve's fellowship the first community. Later, when Adam severs his covenant with God, we know that his children incur the penal ramifications as well for they were represented by him. It is only if we approach God's covenant with Adam from a corporate mindset that we can make any sense at all of how God can impute Adam's sin to all of his progeny (cf. Romans 5:12). Yet our doctrine of original sin hangs entirely on this concept. Before we become too dismal, we must remember we are not left without hope for in the protoevangelium (cf. Genesis 3:15), a Seed is mentioned who will crush the head of the serpent. What goes largely unnoticed in this promise is the fact that God makes it not only with Eve but with her seed (children). This, of course, begins the theme of Scripture where the ongoing struggle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the sermons is displayed. As we move forward in redemptive history, we find God continuing to deal with his people in covenants. Every single one of the covenants that we find mentioned in the Old Testament Scriptures involve an individual and his children: the Noahic, the Abrahamic, and the Davidic. Are we even surprised then to find God bringing down covenantal curses not only upon the representatives of the covenant but upon the children of the representatives as well (cf. 1 Samuel 3:12-14; Deuteronomy 28:15-68)? It is apparent then that God's corporate dealings are an ongoing theme of Scripture.

Investigating one of the previously mentioned covenants a bit further, we will find that it is called an "everlasting covenant" and that it is equated with the gospel (cf. Genesis 17:7; Galatians 3:8; Luke 1:54-55). That covenant, known as the Abrahamic covenant, is chiefly focused on not only Abraham but Abraham's seed. Consider the strikingly corporate nature of the following language:

"And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you." (Genesis 17:7; emphasis mine)

"And God said to Abraham, 'As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.'" (Genesis 17:9; emphasis mine)

"Then God said: 'No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him." (Genesis 17:19; emphasis mine)

Paul then references the Abrahamic covenant and says that it finds its fulfillment in Christ (who is the true Israel who is obedient where ethnic Israel could not be). We are included among Abraham's children by virture of our union with Christ, the true seed of Abraham (cf. Galatians 3:7). Thus, instrinsically the nature of the Abrahamic covenant was one that was made not with a sole individual but with an individual and his children. And from apostolic witness, we see that the external administration of the gospel (i.e. the New Covenant) must instrinsically include children.

But what is the New Testament's teaching concerning the status of children? Given the substantial evidence of God's corporate, covenantal dealings, we should expect to find undeniable evidence that a radical shift away from a corporate mindset to a more individualistic one has occurred. Instead, we find precisely the opposite. Consider the prophecies concerning the coming New Covenant. Each and every one of them include children. Notice I did not say that some or most of them included but that all of them include children, even Jeremiah 31. Here are but a few:

24 My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. 25 They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever. 26 I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. (Ezekiel 37:24-26 ; emphasis mine)

5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. (Malachi 4:5-6; emphasis mine)

21 And as for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the Lord: “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children's offspring,” says the Lord, “from this time forth and forevermore." (Isaiah 59:21; emphasis mine)

36 Now therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city of which you say, ‘It is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by sword, by famine, and by pestilence’: 37 Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. 38 And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. 39 I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. 40 I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. 41 I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul. (Jeremiah 32:36-41; emphasis mine)

The status of children as covenant members and therefore recipients of the sign of the covenant (i.e. baptism) is further confirmed by the words of Jesus when he rebukes some of the disciples for hindering people who were bringing infants to Jesus to be blessed (cf. Luke 18:15-17). The credobaptist will rightly object that there is no mention of water and with this we will heartily agree. But what our brethren overlook is what Jesus says regarding these infants, brephos in the Greek. He says that "to such belongs the kingdom of God (Luke 18:16)." It is clear then that at least some infants (Luke uses the word for infants) are included in the covenant. The question is on what basis is a child included in the covenant and given the sign of the covenant. Paul answers that for us in his letter to the church at Corinth when, in the context of encouraging believers to remain with their unbelieving spouses, informs us that the child of one believing parent is regarded as "holy (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:14)." While the opposition wants to insist that "holy" here refers to a child's legitimacy, such an absurd argument deserves not even serious consideration for marriage not a believing parent determines legitimacy. Let me be clear on what "holy" does not mean. It does not mean that the children of a believer is saved automatically. Nor does it mean that a child has original sin erased through the waters of baptism and is now a "blank slate" as the Roman church so erroneously taught. What it does mean, however, is that the children of a believer are "set apart" in their status from children to unbelievers. They are included in God's covenant community and therefore ought to be subjects of Christian baptism. If you are a credobaptist, consider this. Can you teach your child to sing, "Jesus loves me, this I know?" Can you teach him to pray, "My Father?" If not, why not? And if so, does this align with your view that there is no difference between a child of a believing parent and a child of an unbelieving parent? If you truly believe that Christian baptism should only be for adult, repentant individuals and not for their children as well, then your practice should evidence that belief. We, as Christians, ought to strive to be more epistemologically self-conscious, as Cornelius Van Til has so famously stated. For the children's sake, I am glade that for the credobaptist this is not the case.

Lastly, let us consider what baptism signifies. Baptism itself signifies union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection (cf. Romans 6:4-5). I would argue that circumcision depicts precisely the same spiritual reality (cf. Romans 2:28-29; Colossians 2:11-13). If they both signify the same reality, and if circumcision was the sign given under the Old Covenant administration, there is reasonable implication that baptism has replaced circumcision as the covenantal sign. If this is the case, then one can no longer give the principal objection that the sign cannot be administered until the recipient understands the content of the sign for nearly every circumcision after Abraham was given before the individual performed faith. Obviously, we would not knowingly administer the sign of the covenant to one who openly denies the gospel but in the case of individuals we do not know if there is faith or not as there is record of men like John the Baptist and David who believed in Christ from infancy (cf. Psalm 22:9; Luke 1:15). But in the case of infants and others with mental deficiencies, should we deny them admittance into the covenant because we do not know if the outward reality is true inwardly? Is there not an objective promise contained in the gospel to these individuals? If we recognize that the sign of the covenant has thus been changed to baptism but that the administration is still directed towards whole households, I believe we will truly be able to take great comfort in the fact that the promise of Acts 2:39 includes our children. Soli deo gloria!