In many evangelical contexts today, credobaptism (CB) is often assumed rather than argued. Its underlying assumptions are frequently so ingrained that the possibility of a coherent, biblical case for paedobaptism (PB) is rarely considered by ordinary church members. As a result, paedobaptism is often dismissed without full examination. This paper therefore aims to offer a careful and extended argument for the PB position.
At its core, the debate concerns the identity of the new covenant community in the present age. CB maintains that the new covenant includes only those who personally profess faith in Christ, and therefore that baptism, as the covenant sign, should be administered only to professing believers. In contrast, this paper will argue that Scripture presents the new covenant community as encompassing both those who confess faith in Christ and their children—just as the old covenant community included believers and their offspring.
On this view, children of believers are granted a distinctive covenant status by God, not on the basis of presumed faith, but by virtue of their inclusion within the covenant community through their believing parent/s. This inclusion does not guarantee salvation. Rather, it establishes children as belonging to God’s covenant people unless and until they clearly reject Christ as they come to maturity.
Consider a woman who already has children but remarries. Her new husband covenants to loving and caring for her children on the basis of the mother's covenant commitment and love for him, not the children's. The children are truly in his family, and he is for them because he is for the mother and she comes with them. However, when the children grow to adulthood, they may either share their mother's commitment and love to her husband or turn from him and so from his family. As Jesus put it about giving gifts, if this is how a human father acts even though evil, how much more our Father in heaven. After all, he is the one from whom “every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.” (Eph 3v15).
We need to feel the force of the above illustration as it does get to the heart of the matter. CB holds that the children of believers are not truly members of the church as God’s family as they haven’t yet expressed repentance and faith. Some (but not all) would still say God has a special concern for them because their parents know him, and even talk of them as belonging to the church. However, they assert this whilst still holding that because the children have not yet responded to Christ, they are not members of the new covenant. But covenants have always been the context the Bible gives for God’s special care and inclusion amongst his worshippers. And so, unless the children are held to be in a covenant family, there is no basis for this assumption.
This tension reveals a contradiction at the heart of CB. And as we assess it, we will see that PB provides a more consistent and biblically faithful understanding of how God views our children.
We will proceed by considering various credobaptist challenges to paedobaptism, and outline the paedobaptist view by of response.
The case for paedobaptism.
CB challenge 1: Unlike the Old Covenant, which included believers and unbelievers by physical descent, the New Covenant is said to consist solely of those who know the Lord and have received forgiveness and regeneration (Ezek 36v25-27, Jer 31:31–34, Heb 8). And so, only such people should receive the covenant sign of baptism.
1/ Response: A close reading of the NT shows repeatedly that in this age the new covenant community is broader than those of genuine faith and regeneration, showing continuity with the old covenant community which included the children of its members.
This point is critical to the CB argument, which is why it is first. If we can show from scripture that the scope of the new covenant community in this age encompassed true believers and those who merely claimed to belong to the Lord, just as was the case under the old covenant, then we would expect the covenant sign of baptism to be applied in the same way.
1/ It is well known that the prophets don’t distinguish between what is experienced because of Christ’s first coming and what is experienced at Christ’s return. And so, Ezekiel 36 and Jeremiah 31 could be looking primarily to Christ’s return when all God’s people will be forgiven and regenerate. And both texts actually imply this: Ezekiel 36 speaks of those whose hearts are changed being back in the land, which is like Eden, and that will be entered through resurrection (36v24-35, 37v12, John 5v28-29). The exiles that returned to the land in the 5th century BC did not receive renewed hearts, and so God must have been predicting what those who were faithful then would experience when raised into the new creation. The same point is there in Jeremiah 31. The promise of the new covenant is sandwiched between texts speaking of the re-settling and rebuilding of the land. As the new covenant blessings were evidently not received by the returnees from Babylon, this must be looking to the new creation. This is not to suggest believers don’t receive forgiveness and the Spirit now through faith in Christ. It is rather to say that the picture of all covenant members having those things is one that is focused on the new creation. And so, these texts should not be read to teach that in this present age all members of the new covenant must have received these things. As we will, there can be those counted as members (like children) who haven’t.
2/ Supporting this, a close reading of Jeremiah 31v31-34 reveals that it doesn’t actually say everyone in the covenant community must be forgiven and regenerate any more than belonging to the old covenant community meant you were in the land. These things were the blessings promised by the covenant, given to those who would keep it through a repentant faith in Christ. The text does not say only those with these things were to be considered covenant members. In fact, it says that the covenant will be made with Israel and Judah – ie. those the old covenant was made with. And this implies the same dynamic of some who will respond with a genuine faith and some who won’t - what PB terms the invisible covenant community of the elect, and the visible covenant community of the church.
3/ What Ezekiel 36-37 and Jeremiah 31 are clear about are the greater blessings of the new covenant. How ironic, to teach that in terms of families there is a reduction in the manner of receiving its blessing. But we should not that in reality, those very prophets explicitly include children in its scope: Ezek 37v25, Jer 32v38-40 (see also Is 59v21, 65v23). This is not to read these as promises of salvation to believer’s children. But in context they do show that the dynamic of the household continues as we will show below, and with it the mixed nature of the covenant community.
4/ This idea of a mixed new covenant community like the old covenant community is supported by the church being called the ecclesia/assembly as Israel was in gathering for worship, and the numerous texts that apply old covenant language to the new covenant people (eg. 1 Cor 10v1f, Eph 2v11f, 1 Pet 2v9f) and their children (1 Cor 7v14, discussed below). They strongly testify to a continuity in terms of the covenant’s mixed nature.
5/ This is repeatedly proved by specific texts within the NT which show that the new covenant community in this age included those who weren’t true regenerate believers. As the CB rests so firmly on the new covenant community being just the regenerate, we will give these substantial space.
John 15v1-6
Here Christ speaks of himself as the vine and his disciples as the branches. The vine is a figure for Israel as “the covenant people of God” (Ps 80v8-19).[1] So, his point is that he is now the fulfilment of Israel, and all branches “in him” are now part of God’s covenant people. So, far so good. But look closely at v2 and 6: There are those described as “in him” and so part of the covenant people that are “cut off” for not bearing fruit, or who don’t “remain in me” and so within the covenant people, and so are burned. Baptist commentator Don Carson spots the tension with Christ’s teaching elsewhere in John that Christ keeps those who are his, but doesn’t draw the obvious conclusion: You can be considered part of the covenant people of God in this age because you are visibly linked to Christ like dead branches on a vine, despite not being truly believing and regenerate like those filled with sap. Indeed, as he was speaking in the context of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus had just been alluding to the new covenant (Lk 22v20).
Romans 11v11-24
Paul makes the same point in this text with the imagery of the olive tree. Stemming from the patriarchs, the olive tree represents the Abrahamic people of God in all ages.[2] But its Old Testament usage in Jeremiah 11 explicitly sets this in a covenantal context. Speaking four times of the covenant and how it had been broken, he declares: “The Lord once called you ‘a green olive tree, beautiful with good fruit.’ But with the roar of a great tempest he will set fire to it, and its branches will be consumed.” (Jer 11v16) This is the background for Paul illustration. His point is that Jews who didn’t believe in Christ have been broken off for once again breaking the terms of God’s covenants. And Gentile branches that have been “grafted in” through faith could still also be “broken off through unbelief” (Rom 11v17-22). Again, this is a significant text in showing that within the NT those who prove un-elect are still portrayed as covenant members if they outwardly express faith. Paul likens inclusion in the covenant people in Paul’s day with the sort of inclusion that had taken place all the way back to the root of the olive tree – the time of the patriarchs.
Hebrews 10v26-31
This is even more explicit in speaking of those who sin and so “treat as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them.” My best understanding of these verses is that in continuity with the blood of the covenant in Exodus 24, we should understand the blood of Christ not just as an effectual atonement for God’s elect but also an inaugural provision for the new covenant in which it enables the community to be established by, if you like, being stored up for any who would come into it to. In this sense it sanctifies/sets-apart all who enter that community even if their faith is not genuine - not in the sense of atoning for their sin, but in having created the community and covenant they come into.
Grudem essentially agrees: “The author of Hebrews knows that some may fall away, even though they assemble with the congregation of believers and so share in this great privilege of coming before God [see 10:19-22]. So he says, ‘not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another’ (10:25). The reason to encourage one another is the warning in 10:26, ‘For if we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth.’ In such a context, it is appropriate to understand ‘profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified’ to mean ‘by which he was given the privilege of coming before God with the congregation of God’s people.’ In this sense, the blood of Christ opened up a new way of access to God for the congregation – it ‘sanctified’ them in a parallel to the Old Testament ceremonial sense – and this person, by associating with the congregation, was also ‘sanctified’ in that sense: He or she had the privilege of coming before God in worship.”[3]
As an illustration: Imagine I pay money to buy bricks by which I build a palace, but there are others someone is throwing away that I include as well. I haven’t purchased the cast-away bricks. But they are set-apart (the idea of being sanctified) in being used for my special purpose. And it can be said that they have been set-apart by my money (the idea of blood) in the sense that they only enjoy that privileged place because I laid out the great cost for the building. I think all this does better justice to the twofold idea of blood both inaugurating or setting up God’s covenants and atoning for the sin of those within them who are truly his.
But even aside from this, there is much about Hebrews 10 that supports a mixed view of the new covenant. As mentioned, Jeremiah 31 is the text CB quote to say the new covenant community must only be the elect. But this is quoted in Hebrews 10v15-18, and so in the very same chapter where the writer affirms both the future (invisible and pure) and present (visible but mixed) expressions of the new covenant community (v26-31). Moreover, he adopts the generalised way of talking about the church throughout the NT, by speaking of the group from which he is about to say some can fall away, as “brothers” (v19). And by linking in the very same sentence those who rejected the law of Moses and were cut off from the old covenant community (v28) with those treating the blood of the new covenant as unholy (v29), he is affirming the very continuity I have been asserting: a mixed covenant community some can belong to temporarily by expressing an outer response to Christ, yet break by turning from Christ just as people broke the old covenant by disobedience to the law. Although, the writer makes clear that breaking the new covenant brings an even more severe sort of punishment (ie. covenant curse).
1 Corinthians 7v14
Here, Paul describes the children of a believing mother as “clean” – a word implying covenantal inclusion. A CB response is that he also calls the woman’s unbelieving husband “holy” but we don’t assume he is a member of the covenant community. But this really doesn’t deal adequately with the issue being presented. The verse makes the point about the husband because of a concern that he would “contaminate” the wife and any children, so making them ritually “unclean.” “Holy” is a general term for being set-apart for God’s purposes. But note the word “clean” (ie. not unclean) is used of the child and not of the man. And that is OT covenantal language that speaks of the acceptability of the worshipper.
The theological dictionary of NT words states that “Paul adopts ἀκαθαρσία” (ie. unclean) “from Judaism as a general description of the absolute alienation from God in which heathenism finds itself” and that “Gentile ἀκαθαρσία (unclean) is the direct opposite of the righteousness of Christian sanctification” and “denotes the immoral state of the pre-Christian life.” In short, Paul is saying that the children of believers are “clean” which means not in a state of alienation from God, but sanctified and therefore regarded as a “Christian” in the outer sense at least.
I want to stress, that this does not mean they are necessary elect, but that on the basis of being infants, they are brought into the visible covenant community by virtue of being under the God-given authority of their Christian parents. This is why they can and should receive the covenant sign of baptism, whilst being obligated (like all who are baptised) to persevere in repentance and faith as they mature. Just as Abraham’s act in keeping covenant by circumcising his child was reckoned to the child in Gen 17v14, so the parent’s act of baptising their child is reckoned to the child, and commits them (as baptism does) to the terms of the new covenant – to following Christ.
Throughout the Bible being “clean” never meant someone was saved. But it did mean that they were “acceptable” and so able to participate in Israel’s worship and ritual as members of the covenant community. So, although we can’t be certain, at the very least 1 Cor 7v14 was probably a reassurance to the believing parent that their unbelieving spouse does not put their child out of the sphere of God’s temporal favour and love, which was directed to them on account of their Christian parent’s faith. But, it may have meant more: that on account of the parent’s faith, their children were able to come into the Spirit-indwelt sphere of the church-temple and engage in its practices as those liable to the conditions of the new covenant, but without fear of God’s wrath or of being excluded for defiling it – as happened to Annanias and Saphira (Lev 15v31, Num 19v20). The language certainly affirms the children of believers are distinct from other children, and strongly implies they were regarded as members of the covenant community which gathered as the ecclesia.
Such cleanliness does not require participation in Christ’s atoning blood as salvation does. It only requires God’s gracious restraint. Christ made lepers clean simply by touching them. But especially interesting is the fact that normally people were made clean under the Old Covenant by ritual washing. So, it is not impossible that Paul was presuming in 1 Cor 7v14 that the parent had baptised their child, and because that affirmed their child was under their representation, that child was ritually clean in the way we have described. (Please note I am not saying this was the case, but only that the language makes special sense in the context of infant baptism).
Sproul writes on this passage: “To get at the answer, let us try to determine how a first-century Jewish person would have understood these words. Remember that the primary biblical meaning of the verb sanctify is “to consecrate, to set apart.” In fact, to be sanctified in the Old Testament was to be purified or set apart by some ritual of purification, and the primary such ritual was circumcision. So Paul is saying, using language that is filled to the brim with covenant import, that an unbelieving husband is set apart by his believing wife and an unbelieving wife is set apart by her believing husband. Why? So that their children will not be unclean. In the old covenant, being unclean meant being outside the camp, separated and apart from the covenant community of God. Paul’s words here, then, mean that by virtue of the faith of only one parent, children are holy. This is an explicit New Testament affirmation that the infant child of one believer in a marriage is in a state of consecration. The child is not considered unclean, but is set apart and considered holy. And the rite that consecrates the child in the new covenant community is baptism.”[4] Again, CK Barrett writes: “[Paul] is probably dependent on Jewish usage and conviction here. The children are with the covenant; this could not be so if the marriage itself were unclean.”[5]
6/ Numerous other texts presume what we have established above: For example, the very mixed Corinthian church can in totality be described as “those sanctified in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor 1v2) whilst being paralleled with the mixed old covenant community from whom many fell into sin (10v1-5). Moreover, in 2 Thess 3v14-15 the wayward Christians is still called “brother” implying that he is part of the family and community even if not clearly elect.
7/ Everything we have looked at highlights how momentous it would be for a converting Jew under a CB view to be bringing their child into the new covenant. Under the old, they were considered one of God’s people, especially loved, and belonging to him. But under the new on a CB view, they would no longer belong to God’s covenant, and so receive the same status as the unclean Gentiles, and so be “separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2v12). The parents’ conversion would remove their child from a place of covenant blessing. Yet with all the furor we do see over the implications of the gospel for Jews coming from the old covenant, this issue is never even hinted at. This is significant support for all I have outlined. The apostles must have taught that under the new covenant their children would retain their privileged status. If this hadn’t been the case, you would expect a clear command.
Conclusions:
Lined up against the appeal simply to Ezekiel 36 and Jeremiah 31, the above really should be convincing. The various texts can’t be dismissed as merely describing the appearance of being in the covenant community. 1 Corinthians 7 and Hebrews 10 are quite explicit, as are John 15 and Romans 11 when understood in their Old Testament context.
If we are to read the NT carefully, we must therefore adopt its twofold way of speaking of the new covenant community in terms of both its final/pure and present/mixed expression. This expresses the already but not yet way God’s promises and purposes are experienced in this age.
One criticism I would have of credobaptists is that they are not as nuanced as scripture is, and so over-systematize and essentially flatten out this sort of detail, or are over-literal where the NT uses generalizations. So, John is appealed to when he writes of apostates: “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.” (1 Jn 2v19). But this does not mean the covenant community in this age only refers to those who truly belong in that sense. John’s words actually support the idea it is mixed. These were considered as belonging whilst part of the church as the present expression of the new covenant community. But their apostacy ended up showing that they were not actually of it in its ultimate form. Moreover, throughout the letter he speaks to his readers on the assumption they are true believers who enjoy the blessings of the new covenant. But he doesn’t know that. There may be others who one day go out as the other apostates did. No, he is generalizing as the NT regularly does. Indeed, throughout he also warns against being deceived and encourages them to discern whether they are of “the truth.” In other words, John supports just what we have established: Those in the community of faith are counted as members of the new covenant community until such time as they turn away. And so, we have a present expression of the new covenant community which is mixed and impure, and a future one that is elect, pure, and proved by perseverance in a repentant faith.
The language that links baptism to union with Christ, the pledge of a good conscience, and the new covenant promises of forgiveness and the Spirit are therefore referred to adults who may not be regenerate, but on the charitable assumption that they are. So those said to be raised with Christ in baptism are still warned against being taken captive (Col 2v6-12), and those called “brothers” who are encouraged to draw near to God, are also those who could potentially fall into sin and unbelief (Heb 10v19-31).
This all means that those considered new covenant members in this age are those who outwardly express repentance and faith in Christ without a high bar on what that must look like (1 Cor 1v2, and 10v1-11v33, Acts 2v40-41). By that expression of repentance and faith affirmed in baptism they accept the terms of the new covenant like Israel who declared they would do what the Lord required. This is equivalent to how Gentiles who wanted to partake of the Passover in the OT had to be circumcised first (Ex 12v43-48).
To want to share in the Passover was an expression of faith in God’s promises to Israel, and the costly act of being circumcised was evidence of willingness to do what the Lord required and so a way of accepting the terms of his covenant. And so, for those adults it could be said that in circumcision they put off (or more significantly cut off) their old life and enter into a new life through faith, just as is said of adults being baptised (Col 2v12-13). This is very much the context to the passage on adult circumcision in Exodus 12. Gentiles were joining those who had come out from life in Egypt to a life with God (Ex 12v40-42). These sort of ideas bound to adult baptism in the New Testament are therefore no more a reason to keep baptism from children than adult circumcision was to keep it from children in the Old Testament. And in being born to believing parents, those children are automatically subject to the terms of the new covenant just as circumcised children were under the old.
The children of believers are therefore especially responsible for keeping the covenant by repentant faith in Christ, for to turn from Christ by giving up their expressed faith or displaying it is false through unrepentance, is to break the term of the new covenant (Heb 2v3, 6v4-6, 10v29, Jn 15v6, Rom 11v22). This is far more serious than unbelief before committing to Christ (Heb 2v1-3, 10v29). Such people should then be excluded from the present expression of the covenant community through church discipline (Matt 18, 1 Cor 5). And here we should note that Jeremiah 31v32 doesn’t say the new covenant can’t be broken in its current expression at all, but rather that the breaking of the old one is the reason why the new one is different. It is different in that it cannot be broken in a corporate sense as the old was, nor can it be broken by its believing members.
In summary, the new covenant is made first with Israel and Judah, with Gentiles grafted in (Jer 31v31, Is 42v6). Christ is its mediator (Heb 8v6). The stipulation to be kept is a repentant faith in him, and the promise is of forgiveness and the Spirit (Acts 2v38-39). By this means Christ’s fulfils all aspects of the covenant perfectly on the believer’s behalf as they are spiritually united to him (Gal 3v6-29). But those who enter the covenant by expressing faith or being born to those who do, yet don’t persevere in a true faith, fail to keep the stipulation that unites them to Christ, and so face a most serious judgment.
CB challenge 2: The New Testament explicitly says people belong to Christ, are Abraham’s offspring, and heirs of the promise through faith expressed in baptism (Gal 3v26-29). These are a remnant chosen by grace (Rom 9v6-13, 11v1-6). So, baptism should only be given to those who believe and give signs of being elect.
2/ Response: When the NT speaks of those belonging to Christ as a remnant chosen by grace, it is not referring to all who are outwardly counted as members of the covenant community in this age, but to those who are truly elect and will ultimately inherit the promises in the age to come.
We can now see how this must be understood. These verses are speaking of the invisible covenant community – those who prove themselves by their perseverance to be covenant keepers, and so the Lord’s. Indeed, in Romans 9-11, the apostle Paul teaches just that. He states that the promises belong to Israel, but not all “Israel are Israel” (9v6). In other words, he distinguishes between the visible old covenant community of the nation and the invisible of those who were elect. But look closely at 9v8. Of the old covenant community he says that it was this elect group who were truly “Abraham’s offspring” just as he says of true Christians in Galatians 3v26-29. In other words, the dynamic hasn’t changed in any essential way. It was always that the covenant community was broader that the true offspring of Abraham. And we have seen how Paul makes this explicit just two chapters later when he speaks of Gentile Christians being grafted into the olive tree of God’s people through their expression of faith, even though he expects some to show themselves false and be broken off.
CB challenge 3: Baptism is consistently administered in Scripture to those who have first repented and believed (e.g., Matt 28:19; Acts 2:38; Acts 8:12). Until a child can express this in a credible way, they should not therefore be baptised.
Only a clear New Testament command or unambiguous example should be made normative in the church, but the New Testament contains neither with respect to infant baptism. And if it had taken place, you would expect it to be evident as the church moved into the second generation. The “household baptisms” are interpreted as involving believing members.
3/ Response: Reflecting the continuity of a mixed covenant community, the NT implies baptism was administered to children just as circumcision had been, and so didn’t always follow repentance and faith.
1/ This order is the dominant one in the NT because it is written in a missionary context in which adults are being converted. And for them, repentance must precede baptism. The simple assertion that the NT links baptism with repentance and faith is an insufficient response because those things were required of converting adults in the old covenant community too, who were to be circumcised (Gen 18v19, Ex 12v43-48). Yet circumcision was still given to infants as a sign of this obedient faith that they were supposed to be raised in.
2/ There is an inconsistency for the CB here. They often appeal to the order of the Great Commission is to baptise and then teach. However, they then speak of discipling their children before they get baptised. To make this point is not pedantic. It is to show that they accept the very point PB asserts: What the NT says in generalisation to adults, doesn’t exclude a different order of application to children.
3/ It also does not do justice to a contextualised reading of the NT text to say there are no examples or commands with respect to children being baptised.
The household baptisms (Acts 16v15-34, 18v8, 1 Cor 1v16)
They can’t simply be dismissed because we read those in the household heard the word or believed. The point is that with a biblical understanding of the household as a spiritual unit and the high probability of young children in them, the Jewish reader would have assumed that meant those who could understand affirmed allegiance to Christ and all were baptised including any young children in virtue of that. They (and the apostles doing the baptisms) would surely have thought of how Abraham taught and circumcised his whole “household” even though the babies couldn’t yet understand his teaching (Gen 17v22-27 with 18v19), and perhaps even how Joshua taught the entire nation and then circumcised the males in all households meaning that as covenant members they could share in the Passover (Jos 4v21-5v11).
Here CB don’t read scripture in a sufficiently contextualized way. A key principle of biblical interpretation is that we must put ourselves as best we can into the mind and culture of the original writers and readers. And theirs was one that for 2000 years had seen families as these sort of spiritual units before the Lord, with Abraham’s household in particular being the great paradigm. So, the word “household” in the NT is not just a word, but theologically significant, containing a whole set of biblical presuppositions. This is why it is right for paedobaptists to say that credobaptists must prove these ideas have been abrogated rather than for paedobaptists to show that they haven’t.
For you and your children (Acts 2v38-39)
Importantly, this NT continuity of families as spiritual units would have also been presumed by Jewish family heads hearing Peter speak of baptism in Acts 2v38-39 by alluding to Gen 17v7 “for you and your offspring,” whilst saying God’s covenant promises are “for you and your children.”[6] Indeed, in the wider theology of Luke-Acts, it is likely that Luke included this explicitly to show continuity with the Abrahamic covenant (Lk 1v54-55, 72-73). And the similarities confirm it.
Given these astonishing parallels, it is far more likely than unlikely that Peter’s Jewish listeners would have brought their children for baptism as they repented. They would have seen this as heralding a new final administration of the Abrahamic covenant and assumed the same household principle which was so fundamental to it. (Gen 12v3, Gal 3v7-14, Lk 1v72-73).
John the Baptist’s baptisms
John the Baptist’s ministry is interesting to consider. It was an old covenant one, calling people back to faithfulness to God before Christ had even begun his ministry. Given the Jewish assumptions about the household, parents would most likely have therefore brought their children with them as they came into the waters to be baptised, as Jewish re-commitment to the Lord was always done in households (Gen 35v2-4, Jos 24v15). But John’s baptism was also the precursor to baptism in Christ, meaning this would likely be the same.
We have shown, then, that the order of repentance-baptism is not as clear as CB make out. On the contrary, a contextualised reading of the NT implies baptism was most likely given to children. But what follows will make the case for PB more fully and clearly.
CB challenge 4: Baptism represents identification with Christ’s death and resurrection, and so presumes the reception of forgiveness and regeneration by the Spirit (Rom 6:3–4; Col 2:12). This too requires a conscious, personal faith that children cannot exercise.
There is no one-to-one replacement of circumcision with baptism. It marked ethnic Israel, while baptism marks spiritual union with Christ.
4/ Response: The scriptural idea of covenant signs shows that the sign can be received before the things signified are received, as circumcision was also spiritual in signifying the promise of righteousness to those of faith and urging people to seek regeneration. Yet it was still given to infants.
The link to Christ’s death and resurrection is essentially a restating of the first point. Again, we must understand that Paul is speaking to converted adults. And so, because of their response to Christ they were buried with him in baptism and raised “through faith in the powerful working of God.” (Col 1v12). Likewise, for them, baptism is a “pledge” of a good conscience or “appeal” for a good conscience, depending on right translation (1 Pet 3v21). Very rarely do the apostles use valuable space to qualify their statements for children. And PB would speak just this way to a predominantly adult congregation too.
What needs to be asked then, is whether there is any suggestion in scripture that there can be a period between when a covenant sign is received and when the thing signified is received. We have already seen there are suggestions of just that in the household baptisms and Peter’s word in Acts 2v38-39. But we also see it implied by the links between circumcision and baptism.
Although they do differ, circumcision was a sign and seal of justification by faith given to infant children (Rom 4v11), and also of heart-circumcision which summoned people to seek regeneration (Deut 10v16, 30v6, Rom 2v28-29). And, Paul explicitly links Abraham’s faith which was expressed in the context of the covenant of circumcision with the faith that responds to the gospel (Gen 15v6, Gal 3v6-8). Moreover, Colossians 2v11-12, quoted above, explicitly links the pictures of regeneration in circumcision with that of baptism. CB say an infant can’t express faith and so receive forgiveness and the Spirit, and so shouldn’t receive the sign of these things. But one could equally say the Israelite infant boy couldn’t express faith to receive justification as Abraham did (Gen 15v6) nor call on God to give them a new heart as King David did (Ps 51v10). But they were still circumcised as a sign of these things.
The difference between the covenants and their signs, is not that the new is defined by faith and the Holy Spirit, meaning that its sign should only be given to those who profess faith. No, the old was to be defined by faith for which the work of the Spirit was necessary too. The difference is rather that the old was expressed nationally and so ethnically whereas the new is expressed internationally through congregations; and the old experience of the Spirit was embryonic whereas the new is fully fledged. The ethnic expression of the old covenant from Abraham is why its sign focused on the means of procreation, distinguishing Israel from other nations. And the fuller cleansing and life of the new is why its sign focuses on immersion in water. For both however, God's intent to work through families remains (Gen 1v28, Mal 2v15, Eph 6v`1-4) – but now through many ecclesia (congregations) rather than one ecclesia (the nation). CB do not to justice to this. The NT church is termed God’s household, and is primarily a household of households, which is why elders had to be proved in the home (Eph 2v19, 1 Pet 4v17, and search “household” in Acts, 1 Corinthians, Romans, 1-2 Timothy).
The common CB response is to distinguish between the national and spiritual elements of the Old Covenant, saying that circumcision was given to infants because of the former. They then say that because baptism is about the spiritual, it should not be given to children as circumcision was.
But this point is overstated. The national and spiritual of the Old Covenant cannot be separated. Indeed, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for exactly that (Mk 7v5-7). Circumcision was always spiritual, as it was a sign of a covenant relationship not just with the nation but each of Abraham’s descendants within it (Gen 17v10-14). So, it called each of them to trust, love and obey the Lord. And a refusal to do this was rebuked with reference to circumcision (Deut 10v16, Jer 4v4). When God declared through Jeremiah “I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh” (Jer 9v25), he showed that the circumcision had always been a sign of the inner life of those with true faith (see Heb 3-4, 11). This expectation of faith and Spirit fills the Psalms. Consider Psalm 143v8-10: “Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you…Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.”
And so, Paul is adamant that a true Jew is one who is circumcised in the heart to match that of the body (Rom 2v28-29), and that even the law was “spiritual” (Rom 7v14). The reason it couldn’t be kept by the nation was because so many didn’t believe. Yet, even for those who did, because they experienced only an embryonic work of the Spirit, they needed the detailed law to guide them. But for them, it was spiritual as they obeyed out of faith and love of the Lord.
In other words, in the OT too there was the present mixed expression of God’s covenant community and the ultimate pure one comprising those who had a true faith and this lesser work of the Spirit. The difference in the New Testament is that the lack of a national Christianity and the pressure Christians faced meant that there was less nominalism, and so a less mixed covenant community. And here we should also reiterate that the new covenant is not purely spiritual in the way that is stated either. It certainly is in its essence, but not in its administration. We have already seen with various texts that it has a present mixed expression. I have noticed a tendency when faced with this for credobaptists to just keep returning to Jeremiah 31 and reassert baptism and the new covenant is for the regenerate. But it's just not that simple if we are to justice to scripture.
CB challenge 5: Baptism functions as a public confession of faith, not as an initiating covenant sign applied before faith is present.
5/ Response: The primary focus of baptism is not on public confession of faith but on the promises of the covenant held out by God to his people of whatever age, authenticating them as from the Lord and testifying that those baptised belong to him.
The importance of public confession CB give baptism is difficult to support in scripture. Certainly, for adults, baptism was a confession of faith. But we are nowhere taught that this must be public. Only a few were present when Phillip baptised the Ethiopian (Acts 8v36-38), and no others it seems when Saul or the Philippian jailor’s family were baptised (9v18, 16v33). The point is that there is no reason to hold back from infant baptism because the children can’t bear testimony to a conversion story.
And we have seen that the suggestion is very much that baptism was given as an initiating covenant sign. In my experience, CB often struggle with this because they are so used to believer’s baptism that they can’t conceive baptism not being combined with faith. But to understand this, we need to understand what it is for an ordinance to be a “sign” and “seal.”
Circumcision was a sign in order to also be a seal of the “righteousness that is by faith” (Rom 4v11). In the Greco-Roman world a seal would usually have an image (sign) that pointed to the owner, and was pressed into wax or on goods to authenticate legal contracts or mark ownership. In this sense, circumcision was a “sign” that pictured God’s promises were for Abraham’s descendants who were to cut sin off from their hearts (Deut 10:16; Jer 4:4). And in this it acted as a “seal” that reminded each generation that this covenant was authentically from the Lord and that they belonged to him. The focus of circumcision, then, wasn’t primarily on the individual’s response and possession of what it looked to, but on God’s actual promise of it. So, although it would logically be given in response to faith to adults converting to Judaism, to testify that they were now in the covenant and the Lord’s, for children born into the covenant it would logically be given when they were babies to show the same. In this, it would therefore act to elicit faith as they grew up rather than be given in response to it. As we have seen the same covenant dynamic continues under the new covenant, and so its sign and seal operates in the same way. The difference is that it testifies that God’s promises will be received by those who are spiritually cleansed. Yet, just as those under the old covenant could fail to receive what God had promised by not expressing faith in cutting off sin as pictured in their circumcision (so breaking the terms of that covenant), those under the new covenant can fail to do so by not expressing faith in turning to Christ for cleansing as pictured in their baptism (so breaking the terms of that covenant).
CB challenge 6: Restricting baptism to believers preserves its integrity as a testimony of faith, rather than turning it into a sign that presumes or anticipates that a child will come to believe.
6/ Response: This could all be said of circumcision, and an abuse of a scriptural ordinance doesn’t negate it. Moreover, God’s intent to work through families as a spiritual unit remains.
All this could equally be said of circumcision which was a sign of the righteousness that is by faith (Gen 15v6, Rom 4v11). And abuse of a sign does not negate its rightful use. But, it is worth clarifying why God deems children receive the covenant sign. It is not primarily because of presuming or anticipating faith. First, it is because God has determined that since the time of Adam, parents have represented their children who are implicated in the parents’ response to the Lord. Second, God is therefore pleased to administer the outer expressions of his covenants not only to believers but also to their children. And so, with the Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants, children were born subject to their stipulations and to be cut off from their blessings if they broke them as they grew to maturity. We have seen the same dynamic at work in the present expression of the new covenant. Third, this all reflects God’s unchanging intent to use families to be the means of raising godly children (Gen 1v27-28, Mal 2v15, Eph 6v1-4). Because of this covenantal purpose and intent, children are therefore to be regarded as members of the visible church and covenant community, just as professing adults are on the basis of a charitable judgment, until such time as they prove otherwise (Gen 17:7; Acts 2:38–39; 1 Cor 7:14; Eph 6:1). And neither baptism nor the parents’ instruction guarantees regeneration for children. Those who persist in unbelief show themselves to be covenant breakers, while those who embrace Christ by faith show themselves to be true heirs of the covenant promises by grace alone (Rom 9:6–8; 11:17–22). In short, nothing in scripture abrogates the principle that God deals covenantally with families and households, and that parents are called to act on behalf of their children (Gen 17:9–12; 18:19; Exod 13:2, 12; Num 30:3–5; 1 Sam 1:11, 27–28; Josh 24:15, Acts 2:38–39; 1 Cor 7:14; Eph 6:4; Acts 16:15, 16:34; 18:8; 1 Cor 1:16).
CB challenge 7: Children are never addressed directly as members in the New Testament.
7/ Response: The NT does seem to assume children of believers are members in the sense of being true members of the worshipping assembly, the ekklesia.
I am not really sure adults are directly addressed as members either. Rather, the churches are addressed as a whole. And the fact is that children were in the congregations written to, and they are not explicitly exempted from the teachings being addressed to members. Moreover, we should remember the covenantal language of 1 Cor 7v14, which speaks of children as “clean” and so acceptable members of the worshipping assembly. But consider too, Ephesians 6v1-4. There, children are addressed directly in a way that presumes they are believers and members in at least some sense as they are subject to the apostolic letter. Verse 1 calls the children in the church to obey their parents “in the Lord” - so presuming they are in the Lord rather than qualifying that. Moreover, 6v4 is worded in a very paedobaptist way. Fathers are not told to teach their kids the gospel so they can be saved (which they must of course do), but more broadly bring them up “in” (ie. in the sphere of) the “discipline” (παιδεία: to train someone in accordance with proper rules of conduct and behavior) and “instruction” (νουθεσία: to provide instruction as to correct behavior and belief) “of the Lord.”[7] The point is that this is more the language of discipling those assumed to be in the faith than bringing them to faith. And it resonates with the calling to parents under the old covenant (Deut 6v4-9). I am not saying this is a knock down argument, but it is yet another NT detail that fits better into a paedobaptist understanding than a credobaptist one.
CB challenge 8: Paedobaptists can unintentionally give a false assurance to some baptised as children and contributes to nominal Christianity.
8/ Response: False assurance in both PB and CB circles comes not because of their theology of baptism but failings in church discipleship and discipline. However, PB theology stresses the particular seriousness of children falling away, so keeping parents to their task.
The same issues can face those baptised as teens or even adults. Ad again, problems do not make the fitness of infant baptism invalid. Rather, it should only be given to the children of covenant members, who should be continually urged to their responsiblity to raise their children in the faith. Moreover, as the children grow up, the need to repent and believe, and the seriousness of not doing so when members of the church and new covenant community should be stressed. Indeed, well taught PB actually keeps these things more present to parents than in a credobaptist context as they are reminded of the seriousness of their children falling away and so treating “as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them” (Heb 10v29).
CB challenge 9: Early church history implies a credobaptist pattern, insofar as baptism was often delayed and preceded by instruction.
9/ Response: A careful reading of early church history suggests this is not true. Rather the validity of faith in children is testified to from the start, with early signs that PB was the norm.
We should note that the evidence for instruction was related to adult converts. It by no means shows that CB was the norm. Indeed, just two generations from the apostles Irenaeus speaks of Christ’s work encompassing “infants, children, youths, and adults.” Around 150AD Justin refers to those who have been “disciples of Christ since childhood.” And both at least imply the inclusion of children in the church.
It is true that at the end of the second century Tertullian advised delaying baptism for infants and adults, but this was out of a concern over post-baptismal sin. The sense was that if you were baptised and then sinned, you were left unclean. But interestingly, by addressing it the baptism of infants presumes that it was taking place that early.
In the mid third century Origin then speaks of infant baptism being received as a tradition from the Apostles, and Cyprian both affirms the baptism of infants and links it to circumcision. And as far as I am aware, it is uncontested that the mainstream universal church practiced infant baptism for 1300 years from 300AD.
All this is significant. How did it become so universal so close to the time of the apostles in a culture much closer to theirs if the credobaptist view is so clear and dominated in the first few centuries?
In conclusion.
The weight of evidence from a contextualised and nuanced biblical theological reading of scripture and of church history strongly favours the baptism of infants rather than refusing it. Moreover, I think I have shown that the children of believers are in a wholly different category to those of unbelievers even if they turn out to be unregenerate. Until such time as they grow up and turn away, they are especially “loved” by God for the sake of their parents (Ex 20v6) just as apostate Israel were loved for the sake of the Patriarchs (Rom 11). They are “clean” and so graciously exempted from any temporal punishments their guilt and sin might provoke as they join the worshipping community. Like Christian adults who may fall away and prove themselves unregenerate, they are blessed in becoming those who have “been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age.” (Heb 6v4-5). And, like those adults, they are members of the new covenant community. I think there is a moderate credo-baptism that could include this view of believer’s children even if not going the full way to accepting paedobaptism.
We could also note John the Baptist’s example of showing that by God’s grace there can be something of a response to Christ even in the womb, Christ’s use of children as exemplars of response to him, and his blessing of them, But I think these are less significant and often distract the discussion from the key ideas in play.
But why not just wait?
Some may still ask why bother getting a child baptised rather than wait until they are adults? At one level, the answer is simply because God instructs us to do so with the entire sweep of scripture. However, at another, we would do well to recognise that the baptism of children is hugely significant in ways that adult baptism isn’t.
1. Infant baptism marks out children as true members of God’s covenant community and so the church: So often we treat our children as believers by teaching them to pray and seek God’s forgiveness, yet by keeping them from baptism suggest that they are not genuinely converted until of sufficient age. It is far better, and more scriptural, for children to see themselves as the Lord’s from the earliest age - through their parents’ faith and instruction. This gives them a much needed sense of identity and responsibility as they increasingly struggle with pressure to confirm to the world. It also builds a greater thankfulness to God for Christian parents. Of course, as the child grows up they may show evidence of not having genuinely believed. In such a situation, the child would be encouraged to do so just as a lapsing adult Christian would, with an explanation that this is their conversion. But, for the credobaptist to be consistent and tell a child they are not really part of God’s church and people until they reach a certain again of maturity judged sufficient to respond to a degree the church leaders feel right, robs them of a sense of true belonging through the very years it is so necessary.
2. Infant baptism moves children to take hold of their parent’s repentance and faith and appreciate God’s particular kindness to them: At every subsequent baptism the child witnesses, their own holds out to them the promises of God’s cleansing if only they continue in the faith in which they have been raised. Baptism is therefore a constant pledge to them of what is their heritage, and a reminder to them of the incredible covenant privileges – and obligations – that are theirs because God chose that they be born to their particular parents. How amazing to understand that although they must make the faith they are raised in their own, in being born to a believer they are especially loved, welcomed and blessed by the Lord. And how much more motivation not to throw that all away by rejecting Christ.
3. In a culture dominated by individualism and family breakdown, infant baptism reminds parents of the immense responsibility they have to raise their children as believers and of the covenant privileges God has blessed their children with. These privileges include the example of godliness and access to God’s truth the child will receive through its parents and their church, the prayer and superior care both parents and church can give as those indwelt by the Spirit, the peace, order, support, and wisdom that God grants a Christian household, and above all, the greater opportunity the child will therefore have to embrace the Lord Jesus for themselves. It is by these means that the Lord “shows love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.” (Ex 20v6). And infant baptism honours him for that.
[1] Carson, Don. The gospel according to John (Pillar) p513
[2] Schreiner, Thomas R. Romans (BECNT) p605
[3] Quoted in https://www.samstorms.org/all-articles/post/hebrewhouseholds
[4] Sproul, RC. Baptism.
[5] Barrett, CK. The first epistle to the Corinthians.
[6] Peterson, David. The Acts of the Apostles (Pillar Commentary) p156
[7] Definitions from Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996) Greek-English lexicon