Baptizing Babies: Five Scriptural Arguments (Part 1)

The basic promise of God’s covenant with his people in the Old Testament was to be a God to them and to their children after them. In fact, the Lord gave the lavish promise to those who love him that he would be a God to their descendants to a thousand generations.

One of the hallmarks of Christ Church Bellingham is the conviction that the children of active church members committed to discipling their children should be baptized. It is truly one of the doctrines that makes my heart sing. It was what inspired my wife and I to start having kids young when we were first married (we now have five teenagers, praise God!). So naturally I love introducing it to others.

Over the course of my ministry, I have talked to many families for whom this was a new practice. As I have explained our reasons for it, I’ve found it helpful to divide the case into two parts: the scriptural argument and the pastoral argument. I think they are both important. In this article I will condense the scriptural argument into five statements. And in the next article I’ll explain what I call the pastoral argument.

So according to the Bible, why should we baptize the infant children of church members? 

1. The children of God’s people are always included in the covenant, both in the Old Testament and the New.

The basic promise of God’s covenant with his people in the Old Testament was to be a God to them and to their children after them. In fact, the Lord gave the lavish promise to those who love him that he would be a God to their descendants to a thousand generations (Exod. 20:5,6; 34:7; Deut. 5:10). This promise is captured most powerfully in God’s covenant with Abraham:

And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring… (Gen. 17:7–12)

If infants received circumcision as a sign and seal, it only makes sense for infants to receive baptism as well

It is striking that the New Testament ties this sign and seal of circumcision to Abraham’s faith in Christ:

He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. (Rom. 4:11)

Even though Abraham was to receive justification by faith, the sign of the covenant was still given to his eight-day-old son Isaac. This is because God regards the children of his people to be a part of his covenant with them. They too receive the covenant sign with the expectation that the children will be nurtured in the faith. Just as the Lord told Abraham in very next chapter:

For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him. (Gen. 18:19)

This pattern of the Lord giving his promise to the children continues in the New Testament. On the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was given to the church and Peter gave his great sermon on the gospel to the people of Jerusalem, they were cut to the heart and asked what they should do. Peter responded with a call to repentance and baptism, but with an added word about their children:

And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” (Acts 2:38–39, bold added)

Again, the children are included in the promise. That is why when the Apostle Paul writes to a church and addresses them as “saints” (Eph. 1:1), he addresses the children as well (Eph. 6:1). God deals with his people through households, and the covenantal structure of the Old Testament household remains fixed as redemptive history moves into the age of Christ and the church.

2. Circumcision and baptism are analogous sacraments, both signifying the same thing: regeneration.

One of the main scriptural arguments for infant baptism is that infants were circumcised in the Old Testament, so infants should be baptized in the age of the church. Part of the rationale for this is the analogy the Bible sees between these two sacraments. The Apostle Paul clearly sees a connection between them, saying that we are circumcised in Christ through baptism:

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Col 2:11–12, bold added)

Part of the reason for the change in the covenant sign is that circumcision involved the shedding of blood, the cutting of the flesh. It was a kind of sacrifice. But now that sin has been put to death in the cross of Christ and the cutting of his flesh, the sacrament of the gospel no longer involves the shedding of blood. Jesus is our circumcision.

But it makes sense that there is a parallel between these sacraments, mainly because they are both signifying the same thing: regeneration. Regeneration is the work of God to give us new hearts. The Lord always intended that his people not just be circumcised in their flesh, but more importantly in their hearts (Deut. 11). It is remarkable that though the Lord commanded Israel to circumcise their hearts, he knew they would fail to do it. Therefore, he promised that when the Spirit was given he would circumcise their hearts:

And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will take you. And the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. (Deut. 30:1–6, bold added)

When the Lord’s promise to change the hearts of his people by the giving of the Spirit is later prophesied, strikingly, it was in connection with baptism:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezek. 36:25–27)

In the same way, the New Testament ties baptism to the regeneration of the Holy Spirit:

…he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior… (Tit. 3:5–6)

I know these are a lot of scriptures to digest, but the theme is clear: circumcision and baptism are analogous sacraments.

Circumcision → Circumcision of the Heart

Baptism → Regeneration in the Spirit

If infants received circumcision as a sign and seal, it only makes sense for infants to receive baptism as well. But it is not only that the theology of the Bible can be reasoned this way, but the practice of the New Testament church matches what we would expect to see.

3. The repeated pattern in the New Testament is that believers are baptized along with their household.

You could almost call it a formula used by the New Testament that “so-and-so was baptized with his household.” We live in a much more individualistic society, so it does not seem as natural to us for whole households to enter into covenant with God together. But the Bible views families asconnected units. If you are a child of the covenant, it is something you have to choose out of than something you choose into.

Therefore as we read through the book of Acts, households come into the faith with the parents:

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” (Acts 16:14–15; bold added)

And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. (Acts 16:29–33; bold added)

Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized. (Acts 18:8)

I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else. (1 Cor. 1:16)

In fact, the Apostle Paul goes even further to say that in a household with even one believing parent, the children are regarded by God as holy:

For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. (1 Cor. 7:14)

The coming of Christ has involved an expansion of those welcomed into the kingdom and the covenant people. That means that the sign is distributed more widely. Not only do Gentiles receive the sign, but also women. To restrict children from the sign is to move in the opposite direction of the pattern of redemptive history.

In fact, the Old Testament promises that in the age of the Messiah and the Spirit, the running of grace through families would continue:

“And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the Lord. “And as for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the Lord: “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children’s offspring,” says the Lord, “from this time forth and forevermore.” (Is. 59:20–21)

And that leads to a fourth reason why the scriptures point to a practice of infant baptism.

4. The argument from silence is in favor of infant baptism.

Now you might hear all this and say, “Well, that makes sense, but why doesn’t the New Testament ever just come out and say that a baby was baptized?”

I would argue that it is saying that, just by using the word “household.” But it is also important to realize that the silence of the New Testament on this topic strongly points in favor baptizing infants. The early Christians of the New Testament were largely Jews. They were used to the patterns of Jewish life that had a strong sense of family and God’s covenant promises to their children. If with the coming of Christ, children no longer received the sign of promise, there is no doubt this would have been a huge controversy.

“I don’t remember not believing in Jesus. Yes, there was a time in high school or college when I had to make my faith my own, maybe I rebelled a bit—but I have believed ever since I was a child.”

We have other controversies in the New Testament: Should Gentiles have to be circumcised? Which day should Christians celebrate as the Sabbath? What foods are permissible for Christians to eat?

If children were forbidden from being baptized we can be confident that the question would have come up in one of Paul’s churches and he would have had to address it. As it is, that never happened.

The silence of the New Testament on the matter says that there is a seamless continuity from the Old Testament to the New on the status of children; they are included in the covenant, and hence should receive the covenant sign.

5. Infant faith is considered normative.

Recently, after church, I was talking with someone who disagrees with infant baptism. He made the (loving) jab that he doesn't believe in baptizing unbelievers, and that is why he doesn't believe in baptizing infants. I was surprisingly offended by this comment! “You call my covenant children unbelievers?!” So I want to address this question (are we baptizing unbelievers) in this final point.

It is important to understand that our church’s understanding of how the Holy Spirit works in baptism is mysterious. The Westminster Confession of Faith has some very helpful statements on this. We strongly believe that baptism is one of the primary means the Holy Spirit uses to communicate the grace of Christ to someone. But sometimes that miracle of grace happens when they are little and sometimes when they are older.

The efficacy of Baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered (John 3:5, 8); yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited, and conferred, by the Holy Ghost, to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God’s own will, in His appointed time, (Gal. 3:27; Tit.3:5; Eph. 5:25–26; Act 2:38, 41). (Westminster Confession of Faith, 28.6)

This means the Holy Spirit is really working through the baptism of covenant children.

But it is common in modern American Christianity to assume that every Christian child is going to have a conversion experience. At some point in adolescence (we tend to think), they will rebel against their parents, and then they must repent and accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. That’s the standard pattern. (I will address some of the problems with this assumption in the next post.)

But my experience is that most people who tell me their testimony when they become church members actually say, “I don’t remember not believing in Jesus. Yes, there was a time in high school or college when I had to make my faith my own, maybe I rebelled a bit—but I have believed ever since I was a child.”

Is it possible for someone to be a believer from infancy? How normal should we expect that to be? I lean towards far more normal than many of us think. The most famous account of infant faith is John the Baptist, who praised Jesus while he was still in the womb. But the Psalms seem to suggest that it should be a norm not just for prophets, but God’s people more generally:

Yet you are he who took me from the womb; 
you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts. 
On you was I cast from my birth, 
and from my mother’s womb you have been my God. (Ps. 22:9–10)

For you, O Lord, are my hope, 
my trust, O Lord, from my youth. 
Upon you I have leaned from before my birth; 
you are he who took me from my mother’s womb. 
My praise is continually of you. (Ps. 71:5–6)

The promises of the scriptures are incredibly hopeful for Christian parents and Christian children. Over and over again, the Bible sings to us of God’s purposes to be a God to our children. For parents, doing the hard work of raising young ones—these promises are your foundation. For parents with older children wandering from the faith—these promises are the substance of your prayers. May the Lord baptize many children in our community, and may we give him glory as the Holy Spirit bears fruit in their lives.