The argument in brief.
1. The new covenant community in this age is mixed, including all those who confess faith even if not elect.2. The OT principle of parents representing and making commitments on behalf of their children is not abrogated in the NT but rather assumed throughout.
3. Like adults who confess faith but may not be elect, the children of believers are therefore to be assumed members of the new covenant on account of their parent’s faith and commitment to raising them as believers.
4. Baptism should therefore be given to infants just as circumcision was to infant boys, not because the signs are identical, but because of their similarity and the continuity of the covenant community being mixed and of families being spiritual units.
The argument in full.
The New Covenant ultimately encompasses only the regenerate.1. The new covenant is made first with Israel and Judah, with Gentiles grafted in (Jer 31v31, Is 42v6).
2. Christ is the mediator of this covenant (Heb 8v6).
3. The promise is of forgiveness and the Spirit (Acts 2v38-39).
4. The stipulation is a repentant faith in Christ (Acts 2v38-39).
5. By this means Christ’s keeps all aspects of the covenant perfectly on the believer’s behalf as those of repentance and faith are united to him (Gal 3v6-29).
6. So, the eschatological ultimate expression of the covenant community will comprise only those who know the Lord and are regenerate and forgiven (Jer 31v31-40).
The new covenant community is currently mixed in being defined only by confession of faith.
7. Critical to the credo Baptist argument is their assertion on the basis of this one text from Jeremiah 31, that only regenerate people of faith should ever be considered members of the new covenant community, which is why only they should receive its sign in baptism. However there is significant evidence in the NT that those who prove un-elect are still portrayed as covenant members if they outwardly express faith and are not evidently rejecting Christ: 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). Quite striking is that those in Hebrews are addressed in new covenantal terms as “holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling,” whilst only a few verses later the writer says “we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.” He then uses the fact that many from the old covenant community fell away to warn against those he is speaking to doing the same (Heb 3v1, 6, 7-4v12). So, he has in mind both a present mixed expression and a future perfect one. Even more clearly, the vine is an OT picture of God’s covenant people, but now bound to Christ. Yet Christ himself says there’s a sense in which branches that were once “in” him may not always remain in him (Jn 15v6). Likewise with the olive tree as an image of the covenant people. Branches that are “grafted in” through faith may also be “broken off through unbelief” (Rom 11v17-22). There’s also 1 Corinthians 7v14, where Paul uses “clean” – a word implying covenantal inclusion, to describe the children of believers. And Hebrews 10v26-31 makes it explicit in speaking of those who sin and so “treat as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them” (see later discussion for more on 1 Cor 7v14 and Heb 10). Finally, 2 Thess 3v14-15 is also interesting. The wayward Christian is still called “brother” implying that he is part of the family and community even if not clearly elect. Lined up against the single appeal to Jeremiah 31, these seven texts as well as many others which imply the same, really should be convincing. They can’t be dismissed as merely describing the appearance of being in the covenant community. 1 Corinthians 7 and Hebrews 10 are quite clear. Moreover, the images of John 15 and Romans 11 imply actual inclusion, with Romans 11 likening that inclusion 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.
8. 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 credo-Baptists 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. Some appeal to where John 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. It is a figure of speech, making the point that in this case these people showed by their apostacy that they didn’t belong to God’s people in the ultimate sense. Indeed, throughout the letter John 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.” So, John supports just what we are saying: Those in the community of faith are assumed to be members of the new covenant community until they prove otherwise. And so, we have a present expression of the new covenant community which is mixed, impure and presumed, and a future one that is elect, pure, and proved by perseverance in a repentant faith.
9. In short, because the NT deals with people on the basis of confession of faith, it presumes adults who are baptised are members of the new covenant community and regenerate even though it is known that some may not be. I hope that is not in question as it pervades the NT and the way we treat people in our churches.
10. It's important to note that this means 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 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).
11. Those considered new covenant members in this age are therefore 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 its terms 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 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. Gentiles were joining those who had come out from a past life in Egypt to a new life with God (Ex 12v40-42). These sorts 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.
12. Those of the current mixed new covenant community can therefore break or forsake the covenant by turning from Christ in giving up their expressed faith or displaying it is false through unrepentance (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). 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 elect members through law breaking as David did in his adultery and murder, for Christ has kept its demands on their behalf.
Children of believers are counted covenant members and so should be baptised.
13. Nothing has abrogated the principle that pervades the Bible of a parents making commitments to the Lord on behalf of their children (Gen 17v9-12, 18v19, Ex 13v2, 12, Num 30v3-5, 1 Sam 1v11, 27-28, Jos 24v15). Rather, the NT understood through the eyes of a Jew implies it throughout (Acts 2v38-39, 1 Cor 7v14, Eph 6v4, Acts 16v15-34, 18v8, 1 Cor 1v16). They would have seen faith to still be linked to the child's baptism, because the parents' temporarily represent them in their response to Christ just as Abraham's covenant act was said to be his child's (Gen 17v14, 1 Cor 7v14), because God's promises and normal means of using the family mean there can be a qualified expectation the child will grow up a believer (Mal 2v15, Is 44v3-5), and because from the earliest age they will encouraged to engage with the Lord as one (Eph 6v1-4, further discussed below). So, in the mixed covenant community language of Romans 11v17-24, we can say that Gentile Christians are “grafted” into the vine and olive tree of the people of God, but they do so representing their children who are also therefore said to be grafted in because they are raised displaying an outer faith at least, even though they may themselves later be “broken off through unbelief” when reaching the age of discretion.
14. The household baptisms (Acts 16v15-34, 18v8, 1 Cor 1v16) can’t simply be dismissed because we read the households 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). Alongside my criticism of credo-Baptists not reading scripture in a nuanced way, I would add that they don’t read it in a contextualized way either. 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 credo Baptists must prove these ideas have been abrogated rather than for paedobaptists to show that they haven’t. And the simple assertion that the NT links baptism and new covenant membership with repentance and faith is an insufficient response because those things were required of 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 to be raised in.
15. Importantly, this NT continuity of families as spiritual units would have also been presumed by Jewish family heads hearing Peter speak of baptism by alluding to Gen 17v7 “for you and your offspring” whilst saying God’s covenant promises in Acts 2v39 are “for you and your children.” Indeed, in the wider theology of Luke-Acts, Luke may have included this explicitly to show continuity with the Abrahamic covenant (Lk 1v54-55, 72-73).
16. Because children of believers are represented by their parents in this way and raised to express faith from the youngest age, they should be assumed members of the present expression of God’s covenant just as adults whose faith is uncertain are in the New Testament (Acts 2v38-39 with Gen 17v7, 1 Cor 7v14, Eph 6v1). In other words, as was the case with the Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic and David covenants, their parents have accepted the terms of the covenant on their behalf and so the children must ensure they grow up to keep it with a sincere repentance and faith as they come to an unspecified age of accountability (Deut 1v39, Is 7v16, Rom 5v13) rather than break it through unbelief and unrepentance. Ephesians 6v1-4 is particularly interesting. Verse 1 calls children in the Ephesian 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.” These definitions are from Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996) in their Greek-English lexicon. But 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.
Further support for this understanding of the new covenant and baptism.
17. This sense of continuity with the Old Testament is further affirmed by the new covenant being made with Israel and Judah and so presuming the same dynamic, its visible community being called the ecclesia/assembly as Israel’s 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). As we have seen, there are big differences between the old and new covenants. But they are part of one story that makes their recipients one people - a mixed imperfect covenant community in this present age looking to an ultimate and pure one in the age to come.
18. More significantly, the new covenant is in reality the final stage of the covenant with Abraham that was set up with the household dynamic (Gen 12v3, Gal 3v7-14, Lk 1v72-73), The Old Covenant (Mosaic) was one form of administrating the Abrahamic covenant and the New is another form. But the idea of children being included is based on the Abrahamic covenant which undergirds both.
19. Relatedly, John the Baptist’s ministry 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 usually 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.
20. The NT parallels between baptism and circumcision support all this. Although differing from baptism, circumcision is a sign and seal of justification by faith given to infant children (Rom 4v11), and also of regeneration (Deut 10v16, 30v6, Rom 2v28-29). Indeed, Colossians 2v11-12 explicitly links the picture of regeneration in circumcision with that of baptism. Credobaptists 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 the children of believers remains (Gen 1v28, Mal 2v15) – but now through many ecclesia (congregations) rather than one ecclesia (the nation).
21. A common credobaptist 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). Consider the emphasis on faith and the Spirit in 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). 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 experience 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. But we have shown with numerous texts that it was nevertheless still mixed. And so 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. I have noticed a tendency when faced with this for credobaptists to just keep returning to Jeremiah 31 and re-asserting baptism and the new covenant is for the regenerate. But it's just not that simple if we are to justice to scripture.
22. Everything we have looked at highlights how momentous it would be for a Jew to convert to Christianity under a credobaptist view. It would mean their children would no longer be part of God's covenant community. So they would be removing them from a place of covenant blessing and giving them the same status as the unclean Gentiles: “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). 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 we have outlined.
23. As far as I am aware, it is uncontested that the mainstream universal church practiced infant baptism for 1300 years from 300AD, with the testimony of what preceded that being inconclusive. This is not insignificant either. 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? It should also give us pause for thought that credo-baptism arose when western Christianity was becoming particularly individualistic in responding to Catholic abuse by asserting personal responsibility for one's walk with the Lord. This gives an explanation for why from that time the biblical idea of the household was neglected and the anabaptist movement arose.
Thoughts on some key passages.
On 1 Corinthians 7v14A response to the paedobaptist reading of this verse is to say that if the child is a member of the new covenant community because "holy" then because the unbelieving husband is "holy" he must be too. But this really doesn't deal adequately with the issue being presented. "Holy" simply means set-apart your God's purpose. 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.” But note the word “unclean” is used of the child and not of the man. That is because it 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.
I want to stress again, that this does not mean they are necessary elect, but that on the basis of their being infants, they are covered covenantally by their parent’s repentance and faith. Just as Abraham’s act in keeping covenant by circumcising a child was said to be the child’s act in Gen 17v14, so the parent’s act of covenant keeping for the new covenant, until such time as the child is morally accountable and rejects 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 clean in the way we have described. (Please note I am not saying this was the case, but only that the language makes particular sense in the context of infant baptism)
Whatever the case, I am not aware of any commentator who doesn't read this verse as implying the child is in some sense part of the covenant community. But if part of the covenant community, then they have rights to the covenant sign.
Renowned commentator, CK Barrett is clear that this verse implies the child is a covenant member (Barrett, CK. The first epistle to the Corinthians): “[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."
RC Sproul goes even further. Writing on how to understand this verse and how it supports infant baptism he says (Sproul, RC. Baptism): “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.”
On Hebrews 10v26-31
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 avail themselves of by faith. 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 creating the community and covenant they come into. 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.
Wayne Grudem writes (www.samstorms.org/all-articles/post/hebrews-10:26-31): “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.” In other words, the writer is carrying on the OT idea of the ecclesia (church) as a mixed assembly.
And so, there is much about Hebrews 10 that supports my view of the new covenant. Jeremiah is the text credo-Baptists quote to say the new covenant community must only be the elect. But this is quoted in the immediate context of Hebrews 10 (10v15-18). So, in the very same chapter 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 a 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).
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 assumed to be members of the new covenant community. As an illustration, we might consider a woman who already has children marrying. 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. He is for the children because he is for the mother and she comes with them. Likewise they are to share in her love and commitment by holding him as father. However, when the children grow to adulthood, they may continue to share her commitment and love to him or turn from him. This is not an attempt to sway with an emotive illustration. It is a theological argument, as marriage and fatherhood are modelled on God. And he declared specifically himself a father to the fatherless. Of course that's a different context. But it says something abiding about the character of God. Are we really to say that he shows less love to the children of his bride than fallen husbands do? 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.Additional points could be made about the OT promises of the new covenant that include offspring, the abiding principle that God desires from marriage “godly offspring,” and how infant baptism therefore expresses trust in his faithfulness in using this as his normal appointed means of bringing the children of believers to faith. We could also discuss the promissory nature of baptism as a sign and seal making it a way for God to mark out his people, even if some are not yet able to respond rightly – just as a legal seal authenticates and guarantees what is not yet received. And we could 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 we 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 if unwilling to presume faith and covenant members in church children, they must tell those who have not yet reached a maturity of response judged sufficient by their church leaders, that God is not yet their Father, that there is no point praying as this is a Christian privilege, and that they are not really part of God’s church and people. Yet that robs them of a sense of true belonging through the very years it is so necessary, and more seriously, of a fledgling relationship with God. This is why I think the debate around infant baptism is so important. It affects how we treat children. And I say this with respect for my many credobaptist friends, but to my mind, if they were consistent in how they treated church children they would make the same error that the disciples made in keeping children from Jesus. How Christ feels about this is not unclear: "When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these." (Mk 10v13-14). I don't think this means they were necessarily saved. But in the light of what we've considered it surely means that as part of God's covenant community, the kingdom was their heritage in a special way, and they were in the sphere of God's love, favour and blessing. And Jesus himself clearly wants them to know that, and to be treated accordingly.
2. Infant baptism moves children to take hold of their parent’s repentance and faith and appreciate God’s particular kindness to them.
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.
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.” And infant baptism honours him for that.