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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.
