Are Infants Also to be Baptized?

       

         I was born and raised in the Protestant Reformed Churches, Reformed churches of Dutch heritage.  My husband grew up in the same denomination, and we are still members there.  I never questioned paedobaptism - the practice of baptizing infants or young children - until just before the baptism of our first child.  At one of our daughter's first well-baby check-ups, our family physician, a Christian man whom I respected very much, made an off-hand remark to the effect that infant baptism is unbiblical and sprinkling with water is insufficient.  His remark sent me to the scriptures to study baptism, a study to which I've repeatedly returned, most recently while reading aloud to my children To the Golden Shore, Courtney Anderson's masterful biography of Adoniram Judson, who converted from the paedobaptist to the credobaptist position en-route to Burma.

A little more than a month ago, my husband and I stood before our congregation and answered this question for the seventh time: "[Do] you acknowledge that although our children are conceived and born in sin, and therefore are subject to all miseries, yea to condemnation itself, yet that they are sanctified in Christ, and therefore, as members of His church, ought to be baptized?"  We answered sincerely; our answer was "yes."

Are infants also to be baptized?

Yes, because God is a family God.

The three persons of our triune God live in a covenant, family relationship.  That God established His covenant relationship with His people means that He made them part of His family.  Throughout the scriptures, He extended the promises of His covenant to believers and their children (Gen. 17:7, Acts 2:39).  For that reason, when Zacchaeus was converted, our Lord declared, "Today salvation has come to this house," and for that reason the households of Lydia, the Philippian jailer, Cornelius, and Stephanus were baptized.  What about those whom the Lord calls as individuals?  He places those who are solitary in His family (Psalm 68:6).  That family of God, the church, is always viewed organically in the Bible.  For that reason every male child was circumcised in the Old Testament - even foreign slaves who were not of Abraham's line (Gen. 17:12), Ishmael, with whom God did not establish His covenant (Gen. 17:18-19 and 25), and Esau, whom God hated (Rom. 9:13); for that reason all the children of believers are to be baptized in the new.  Does this unnecessarily apply an Old Testament paradigm in the New Testament?  No.  The sign of the covenant has changed because Christ's blood has atoned for the sins of His people: no more blood needs to be shed (Heb. 10:12).  But God's covenant is one covenant, the covenant that He remembers forever (Psalm 105:8).  Circumcision did not distinguish the biological children of Abraham while baptism marks his spiritual descendants.  The outward sign of circumcision pointed to the necessity that God circumcise the heart (Deut. 30:6), the same reality to which baptism points, as Col 2:11-12 explains.  Circumcision was and baptism is to be applied to the family of God organically, for to say that one can know and baptize only Abraham's spiritual descendants on the basis of their profession is a misconception.  Only God knows the heart.  Throughout the history of the church there are those who confess with mouth though they do not believe with the heart.  Not everyone who says to Jesus "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 7:22).  The angel of death passed over the homes of the Israelites who had sprinkled the blood of the Passover lamb on the lintels and posts of their doors; similarly, we sprinkle entire households with the water that pictures the shed blood of God’s Firstborn, the Passover Lamb.

Yes, because those who can receive the reality can receive the sign.

The water of baptism does not wash away sin: the sacrament is a sign of a spiritual reality, the washing away of sins by the blood of Jesus Christ.  Do some receive that reality is infants? The Bible teaches that they do.  God loved Jacob and hated Esau before they had done any good or evil, and He knew Jeremiah before He formed him in the womb.   When the Bible says that God loves and knows a person, the meaning is this: that person is saved.  The beloved apostle wrote not only to the fathers and the young men in the church but also to the little children.  What did he have to say to them?  "I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake" (1 John 2:12).  Not only were their sins forgiven them, but, John declared, "You know the Father" (v. 13).  How did they know Him? Not with the knowledge of a theologian, to be sure, and not even with the knowledge of the young men or the fathers whom John also addressed, but with a knowledge comparable to the knowledge my infant son has of my husband and me.  When he was born, washed, and placed in my arms, he knew Mother and desired to be fed.  He cannot yet see my husband clearly, but in a crowd of people he turns toward Father's voice and fixes his eyes on Father's face.  He could not tell you our names - he cannot even reach out his arms for us - but he knows us.  Our presence calms his crying and elicits his first smiles.  His knowledge of us is a beautiful picture of the certain knowledge and hearty confidence without which Jesus said this: "Ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 18:3).  It's the nature of healthy, living things to grow.  As our son grows physically, his knowledge of us will grow, too.  The same is true of all who are infants in the faith, no matter if they receive the gift of faith as infants or adults.  Nourished with the sincere milk of the word, they will join the rest of the family at Father's table when they are able to apply that spiritual food to themselves. 

Yes, because paedobaptism is consistent with Reformed - that is, Biblical - theology.

An infant does not choose to be born. In fact, if given the choice, he would probably not want to leave the warm familiarity of his mother's womb. But when he is born, he experiences what it means to be loved and tenderly nourished. So God regenerates and baptizes His children, then places them in the arms of mother church.  They are not born and baptized of their own will.  Ultimately, the sacrament of baptism is not a sign only to the individual who receives it.  Though believing parents and the congregation of witnesses vow to help or cause their baptized children to be instructed in the truth of the scriptures to the utmost of their power, some children of believers will leave the church, manifesting that they are not all of us (1 John 2:19).  In that sad situation the sorrowing parent, who understands that all "they are not all Israel who are of Israel," must bow before the sovereignty and goodness of God in salvation (Rom. 9:6 and 18-24).  To the individual who is baptized, the sacrament, like the preaching of gospel, is used to one of two ends, salvation or condemnation, according to the sovereign will of God (2 Cor. 2:14-16).  But when believers witness water being sprinkled on the forehead of a helpless baby, they are reminded of the washing away of their sins and their baptism into the Spirit. When Jesus Christ washed me, I was beyond helpless.  Indeed, spiritually speaking, I was dead, unaware of my sins and unable to repent of them.  But he washed me.  And not only did He wash me, He clothed me as well.  When our little boy was baptized one month ago, we dressed him a white linen romper that I had sewed for him.  I'm like him, spiritually speaking: I've been clothed in the white robes of Christ's righteousness (Is. 61:10) and sprinkled with the water of consecration (Num. 8:6-7, Ex. 36:25), set apart for His service and commanded to offer myself as a living sacrifice of thankfulness to Him (Rom. 12:1).  Because salvation is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God who shows mercy (Rom. 9:16).  And, wonder of wonders, He shows that mercy to the children of those who love Him to a thousand generations (Ex. 20:6).

Note: For many of these Scriptures references and passages I am indebted to our pastor for the many sermons that he has preached on baptism.