What is Baptism?

When we consider the sacred rite of baptism, it is necessary to understand both its significance and its application. First, the significance of baptism.

As a result of the emergence of a man-centered view of redemption, there has been a corresponding rise in a man-centered view of the sacrament of baptism. This should really come as no surprise since baptism is the initiatory rite of being ushered into the visible people of God. If the church's view of redemption is man-centered, then baptism which points to redemption will be seen in a man-centered way. In other words, baptism is seen in many evangelical circles as pointing to the individual's personal faith and repentance. This is exactly the opposite of what baptism, or any other covenant sign in Scripture, is meant to do. Signs are markers which serve to remind (however anthropromorphic it may sound) the suzerain God of his objective promise. It is not a sign of some inward change. This was the case in every covenant in the OT and continues to be so with baptism. Let us look at some examples:

8 Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, 9 “Now behold, I Myself do establish My covenant with you, and with your descendants after you; 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; of all that comes out of the ark, even every beast of the earth. 11 “I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; 13 I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. 14 “It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud, 15 and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 “When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.” -Genesis 9:8-17

Notice, the purpose of the sign of the covenant is so that God "will remember" his covenant (v.15. The sign of the covenant (i.e. the rainbow) is not pointing to some subjective, inward disposition within Noah. It is not a sign of Noah's personal faith in the promise of the covenant. It is a sign to remind God of God's promise. To put another way, it is outward and objective rather than inward and subjective. Here is another one:

9 God said further to Abraham, “Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. 10 “This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 “And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you. 12 “And every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations, a servant who is born in the house or who is bought with money from any foreigner, who is not of your descendants. 13 “A servant who is born in your house or who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised; thus shall My covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. 14 “But an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.” -Genesis 17:9-14

The sign of the Abrahamic covenant is the bloody rite of circumcision. Was circumcision a sign of the inward, subjective disposition of the recipient? Verses 12-13 clearly demonstrate it was not, because every male in Israel was circumcised even those who would later demonstrate unbelief. What exactly does circumcision then signify? Paul, who also calls the Abrahamic covenant the gospel in Galatians 3:8, says this regarding what circumcision signifies:

11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; 12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. -Colossians 2:11-12

While many credobaptists may want to object and say that Paul does not say that baptism replaces circumcision in this text, that is not the point. The point is that what Paul does state is that both circumcision and baptism convey the same spiritual reality, that is, the objective work of Christ in dying and purging us of the sinfulness of the flesh. Circumcision is the bloody rite which looks forward to this event while baptism is the bloodless rite which looks back. Neither, however, are necessarily intended to signify something about the individual recipient.

In regards to the application of the sign of baptism, I will propose this. When we correctly understand the significance of baptism, then the application of baptism flows from it. What I mean by this is that a God-centered view of baptism's significance results in a corporate-oriented view of baptism's application. If the significance of baptism is really meant to point to the outward, objective work of God in Christ and as a reminder to God and His people of that work, then the administration of baptism is not dependent upon knowing the internal disposition of the recipients. To clarify, no one who supports covenant baptism would advocate baptizing someone who is demonstrating unbelief and hatred towards the gospel. Such an idea is monstrous! With the case of infants, we do not know if they possess saving faith or not. Fortunately, this is not the criterion upon which we must determine whether or not to baptize an individual. The criterion is based upon God's objective promise through the gospel to believing households! This enables us then to take Peter's promise seriously in Acts 2:39 that the promise of the New Covenant is to believers and their children. Soli deo gloria!

Children are included in the New Covenant

A book I highly recommend (though I do not endore his Federal Vision theology) is Douglas Wilson's To a Thousand Generations. I find the case he makes for ochobaptism (or household baptism) to be very convincing. Concerning his argumentation, Douglas Wilson makes the bold claim: "In arguing for biblical infant baptism, it is not sufficient for us to say that infant baptism is merely consistent with the Scriptures, or that a biblical case can be made for it. In order for us to be satisfied that we are being biblical Christians, we must be content with nothing less than a clear biblical case requiring infant baptism." I believe that if we begin by understanding that children are members of the New Covenant and that the New Covenant is equated with the Abrahamic Covenant in Galatians 3, the case for administering the sign of the New Covenant to all its members becomes undeniable. But do the Scriptures teach that children will be included in the New Covenant? To avoid this fact, one has to discount virtually all the prophecies concerning the New Covenant in the OT. Here are 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 (ESV; 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 (ESV; 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 (ESV; 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 (ESV; emphasis mine)

Consider the weight of these texts and how all the other covenants in Scripture (the Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic) all included Scripture. The grammatico/historical approach (which is a characteristic of the Reformed hermeneutic) requires us to try and interpret these passages how the original audience would have understood them. Is there any doubt that to a Jewish audience who heard the prophecies concerning a coming covenant (one that is promised to be better as well) they would have assumed their children were included as well? Of course they would, and especially since all the covenants of the patriarchs included children. These prophecies and their emphasis on generational blessing and promise would have only echoed their understanding that God is Lord of the Covenant and that children are included. The goal of the New Covenant is not to abrogate the covenantal parent/child relationship but to fulfill it. This is particularly obvious in the Malachi 4:5-6 passage.

Reformed Baptists often want to negate the continuity between the two covenants by emphasizing the "newness" of the New Covenant and going to Hebrews 8. I myself found this a compelling case at one time; however, the point of the Hebrews 8 passage is that the New Covenant is different because it can actually guarantee faithfulness of the members' descendants. The Old Covenant could not do that because the law was not written on the heart but on tablets of stone. Why would we make the New Covenant weaker than the Old by restricting the inclusion of children? The fact is, with the weight of the OT prophecy concerning the New Covenant, there is no Biblical grounds to do so. I firmly believe that Baptists practice credobaptism because they preach a regenerate membership. The only problem is nominalization is just as rampant amongst Baptist circles (if not more so) as it is amongst Presbyterian ones. There will always be those who are in the visible church who are not truly part of the invisible. That is why the practice of church discipline and excommunication should exist.

My main problem with credobaptism is that it is not a theological system that is practically lived out, at least not in Reformed Baptist camps (and thankfully so). However, in many other Baptist churches that have a low view of doctrine and teaching, there is a tendency to have a low view of childrearing. After all, why would you raise your child in the "discipline and instruction of the Lord" (Eph. 6:4) when they are not included in the covenant promises? For that matter, why even read any of Ephesians 6 that has to do with children since, after all, children are excluded from the promises of the New Covenant? Why catechize? Why say blessings with your children at bedtime? Why read them Scripture? They are no different than the children of nonbelievers. Fortunately, while devoted Christians may fall on either side of this issue in the theoretical, all devoted Christians raise their children as if they were members of the covenant. Soli deo gloria!

According to the NT, What is the Status of the Children of Believers?

In reading the NT the careful exegete should make at least FIVE OBSERVATIONS pertaining to the children of believers.


First of all, according to the NT, the children of at least one believing parent are HOLY. In 1 Corinthians 7, the Apostle Paul is explaining the implications of the gospel for marriage. In verses 12-16, he considers the problem of marriages in which only one spouse is a believer. Under such circumstances, Paul encourages the believing spouse to remain married to the unbeliever, and in verse 14 he explains his rationale. 1 Corinthians 7:14 says, “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.” In other words, the faith of the believing spouse makes (notice the use of the verb in Greek) the unbelieving spouse holy, and because of the faith of at least one believing spouse, the children of that marriage are holy (notice the use of the noun in Greek). Paul’s expectation is that the unbelieving spouse will be influenced by the faith of the believing spouse, but Paul’s assertion is that the status of the children of at least one believing parent is presently holy. In order to accomplish this, Paul uses the noun “holy” of the child and the verb “make holy” of the parent or spouse. The verb speaks of the effect of the faith of the believing spouse upon the unbelieving spouse. However, the noun speaks of the effect of the faith of the parent on the status of the child. Furthermore, this is why it would be inappropriate to say that Paul says the same thing of the unbelieving spouse that he says of the child. In terms of the unbelieving spouse, Paul speaks of the influence of the faith of the believing spouse upon the unbelieving spouse. In terms of the children, however, Paul speaks of their present status by virtue of the faith of one of their parents. They are holy. Of course, the fact that the children are “holy” does not necessarily mean that they are “born again” or “saved” or “justified” in any of the ways in which we ordinarily use those terms. It simply means that they are “set apart.” But in what sense are the children of at least one believing parent “set apart”? It would seem that the children of believers are “set apart” in the sense that they are set apart from the world and made members of God’s covenant people. Calvin’s citation of the second half of Romans 11:16 seems helpful in this regard: “…if the root is holy, so are the branches” (See Calvin’s commentary on 1 Corinthians 7:14). This is Paul’s reasoning in 1 Corinthians 7:14 as well (See also, Ezra 9:2).


Second, the children of covenant members are RECIPIENTS OF THE SAME PROMISE that God makes to their parents, who are adult covenant members. After preaching a powerful sermon on the day of Pentecost, Peter commanded a response from his Jewish audience. He says, “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” (Acts 2:38-39). By remembering that Peter is addressing a Jewish audience (cf. 2:5, 37) and that the Jewish people are covenant members, it is incredibly significant that Peter offers the promise of the Spirit (cf. 1:4; 2:33) to them (the Jews) and their children. In other words, speaking from the perspective of the children, the children of covenant members are recipients of the same promise that their parents receive as members of the covenant people. If it is objected that this promise is only valid for Jews, not Gentiles, then the objector would do well to consider Paul’s words in Ephesians 2:11-13. Paul says, “Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:11-13). In other words, it would be appropriate to assert that in Acts 2:39 Peter could have said, “The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off (Gentiles), everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself [and their children],” but he does not say this because (A) he is addressing a Jewish audience and because (B) the truth that the promise made to the Jews comes also to the Gentiles through Jesus Christ is developed only later in the NT. So then, it is perfectly reasonable to conclude from Acts 2:39 that the children of covenant members are the recipients of the same promise as their parents. And this is not even to mention the obvious reference to the Abrahamic covenant and the continuity of that covenant with the new covenant.


Third, the children of covenant members were BAPTIZED WHEN THE HEAD OF THE HOUSEHOLD BELIEVED. It is well known that both Acts and 1 Corinthians contain several examples of household baptisms (Acts 16:14-15, 31-34; 1 Corinthians 1:16). However, what is not as well known is the fact that in several cases the author only records the faith of the head of the household. This is true of both Lydia (Acts 16:14-15) and the Philippian jailer (Acts 16:31-34). Please note that the point is not that these households necessarily included infants, which we should not assume, or even that the children in the household were baptized without faith; the point is, however, that for some reason Luke considered the faith of the head of the household (Lydia, the Philippian jailer) as a sufficient rationale for baptizing the whole household. The skilled theologian needs to provide a reason why Luke thought this was sufficient.At this point, it should seem sufficiently clear that the understanding of Acts 2:39, which has already been discussed above, provides that rationale. At the very least, baptism is an outward sign of God’s promise to baptize his people in the Holy Spirit. According to Luke, the children of believers were baptized along with their parents precisely because God makes the exact same promise to them. This does not mean that the children have no responsibility to believe that promise. In point of fact, in order to benefit from the promise, they must believe. However, on the positive side, it does mean that God does not need their faith before he makes his promise. God gives his promise based on the covenant, not the faith of individual covenant members. Therefore, God’s covenantal promise is the basis of their faith, not the other way around. As Luther correctly asserts, “Faith doesn’t exist for the sake of baptism, but baptism for the sake of faith;” and he says, “True, one should add faith to baptism. But we are not to base baptism on faith” (Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, Second Edition, Edited by T. Lull, pp. 249, 253). Moreover, since God’s promise is an extension of the covenant, he makes the same promise to all covenant members. Therefore, since children are members of the covenant (1 Corinthians 7:14) and recipients of the promise made to their parents (Acts 2:39), they were baptized along with their parents.


Fourth, children are addressed as MEMBERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. When Paul writes to “the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus,” he later includes children among the people he addresses. For example, in Ephesians 6:1, he says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” Now, it should be quite obvious that since he writes to saints in Ephesus, who are faithful in Christ Jesus, and since he addresses children in this text, he certainly assumes that these children are saints and even believers. Therefore, there is no reason to assume that they were not included as members of the Christian church, even as they are mentioned here as serving in that capacity.


Fifth and finally, children, even infants, are INCLUDED IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD. Consider Luke 18:15-17. In verse 15, people are brining infants (Greek: ta brephe) to Jesus for his blessing. However, the disciples try to prevent them from doing so. Jesus corrected his disciples and said, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God” (v.16). It was probably surprising to the disciples that the reason Jesus permits the children to come to him is because the kingdom of God belongs to such as them. Jesus neither says to such like them nor does he mean it. He means that the kingdom of God belongs not only to those who are childlike, but he also means that it belongs to children. Hence, it is appropriate to say that children, even infants (cf. v.15), are included in the kingdom of God. Jesus probably means children in general, not necessarily every child without distinction. However, at the very least, it would include the children of his covenant people.


So then, in conclusion, according to the NT, the children of believers are holy, recipients of God’s promise, baptized along with their believing parents, addressed as Christians, and included in the kingdom of God. These observations are astonishing, and they do not even include the additional observations that could be made about the continuity of the new covenant with the previous biblical covenants (Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic), which all included children. Thus, the NT leads us to believe that the covenantal status of the children of believers is equal to the covenantal status of their parents.

An Echo of the Abrahamic Promise in the New Covenant

The promise of the New Covenant is found in Jeremiah 31:31-34. Although our Reformed Baptist brothers in Christ claim that the nature of the New Covenant excludes the practice of infant baptism, the details of the text suggest otherwise.

Moreover, although the New Covenant is a discontinuation of the Mosaic Covenant (Jeremiah 31:32), it is a continuation of the Abrahamic Covenant, and since the Abrahamic Covenant included children, the New Covenant also includes the children of covenant members.

It is not the purpose of this post, however, to demonstrate the theological validity of this argument about the inclusion of children. Instead, this post simply seeks to highlight an echo of the Abrahamic promise in the New Covenant. It is true, though, that this echo should be part of the larger argument about the continuity of the Abrahamic and New Covenants and the inclusion of children in the administration of the New Covenant.

The echo of the Abrahamic promise in the New Covenant is found in Jeremiah 31:33: “…And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” This verse echoes the Abrahamic promise found in Genesis 17:7, which says, “And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.” This is the great promise of the Abrahamic Covenant. Indeed, this is the great promise of the covenant of grace in every administration. God promises to be God to his people. But who are his people?

Here is what the exegete needs to observe – the background of the phrase “my people” in Jeremiah 31:33 is “you and your offspring after you” in Genesis 17:7. In other words, God includes the offspring (seed, descendents, children) of covenant members in his people.

Emphatically, then, the New Covenant does not exclude people (i.e. children of covenant members) who were previously included in the Abrahamic Covenant. In point of fact, the New Covenant celebrates their full inclusion because the New Covenant promises to write the law of God on the heart, not merely on tablets of stone (cf. Jeremiah 31:33).