An examination of the Scriptural warrant and historical significance of infant and believer’s baptism. Can both expressions coexist in a single body of believers?

Of the secondary doctrinal distinctives of the church, few others rise to the level of debate and division like the question of baptism.  Like the mighty Yellowstone river cutting a gorge through the rhyolite layers of the park, baptism has often divided the church, but should it? There are many questions. Should we baptize babies or believers? Should we sprinkle or dunk?  Does baptism save, or is it symbolic.  Is baptism a sacrament endowed with special spiritual blessing or simply an ordinance to be observed?  Is baptism the covenantal successor to circumcision, or does it represent a New Covenant shift in emphasis?  On these questions churches have divided, figuratively and literally, drawing battle lines for the last 500 years.  

But does it have to be so? In this article, I argue that it does not.  Are there caveats?  Sure.  Is there need for nuance and care?  Absolutely.  But in general, I do believe the church can and should be willing to embrace genuine, biblically-faithful brethren from the other side of the baptismal aisle.      

Note, in this article I use the terms credobaptist and paedobatist.  Credobaptism is what we commonly call believer’s baptism today – it’s generally an older child or adult being baptized, typically within a short period of time after their profession of faith.  Paedobaptism is commonly called infant baptism, and though paedobaptists will baptize older converts, their normative approach is to baptize an infant at the request of the child’s parents as a symbol of their addition into a covenant community of believers.  

My Story – Navigating the Waters of Baptism

While my article, Origin Story, shares more broadly about my spiritual journey, I think it’s of some value to zoom in here to describe my own baptism story.  I grew up in a little congregational church in New England. Like many churches in the area, it’s centuries old.  Sadly, also like the dwindling number of old churches that still remain, the echoes of its faithful and earnest Puritan roots have largely faded away, replaced with a growing eccumenicalism that has seen many of the key tenants of orthodox Christianity eroded and denied.  

However, one of the old doctrinal traditions that has still remained, even as I was growing up, was the practice of infant baptism.  And so, as a baby I was baptized by sprinkling from a century-old wooden font.  As is common with denominations that practice infant baptism, in middle school, I took the church’s confirmation class.  There were a handful of us enrolled, and if I recall correctly, we met once or twice a month for a year, going through the basic tenants of the faith.  Once completed, there was a confirmation service, where we confessed our faith and were installed as members of the church. 

While the church was not evangelical, and I do not recall hearing, let alone understanding the Gospel, despite going weekly to church, Sunday school, and whatever other events the church had going on – I nonetheless can see God’s hand clearly at work, shaping me, guarding me, and preparing me for the day when He would call me to Himself in my junior year of high school as I drove home from a weekend retreat with my best friend’s church.   

When I moved to Florida for college, I was eager to connect with other Christians and quickly got plugged in to Campus Crusade for Christ (now CRU). Most of these folks – now lifelong friends – were attending First Baptist Church, so that’s where my roommate and I first went too.  As was the case with many SBC churches in the late 1990s, the altar call was a weekly part of Sunday worship. It was here that I first began to wonder if my baptism was actually valid.  Now that I was a believer, was it appropriate for me to be baptized again?  I honestly wasn’t sure.   

Skipping ahead a few years, my soon-to-be wife and I found our way to a small reformed baptistic church plant – a place where we would plant ourselves for the next 25 years.  Here, I saw for the first time the existence of both a strong position on believers’ baptism and an openness to accept and honor those who held a belief in infant baptism. It’s probably helpful, here, to make a note on the doctrinal philosophy of the church. Like a doctrinal pyramid, at its base the church welcomed those with diverse theological views to attend, but the pyramid narrowed as a visitor became a member, and then narrowed further still as members moved into various levels of leadership.  At the top, elders were expected to have significant theological fidelity (something I think to be very wise), even on secondary matters like baptism.  So, in order to be an elder at my church – a role I would one day serve in – you had to hold a credobaptist view of baptism, as I do.   

I did then, as I do now, find this to be a tremendously encouraging approach to theology in the church. In fact, if I were to plant a church, that’s precisely how I would want my church to be – where we can both hold to Bible-informed convictions – even strongly – but when those convictions are on secondary matters, we hold those convictions with an open hand for the sake of embracing those who hold their own biblically-rooted, but differing views.  

For the last twenty-five years or more, I have held to believer’s baptism because, based on my study, it seems to me to be the most faithful to Scripture.  Simply put, when I look plainly at the verses that discuss baptism, I find more support for believer’s baptism than infant baptism.  As such, our children were all baptised as believers. When I teach on the subject, it is believer’s baptism that I commend.  Nonetheless, I am not comfortable saying that believer’s baptism is the only acceptable belief for true Christians. There is a solid argument, drawn from a faithful understanding of the Scriptures, that can be made for infant baptism – and in particular the Presbyterian understanding of it, not as salvific in and of itself, but as a symbol and a seal into God’s covenant community.  I simply cannot dismiss these brethren out of hand because they hold a different biblical conviction than my own.

A Bit of Baptism History

As the old adage goes, if we don’t know our history, we’re doomed to repeat it.  And so it is with baptism.  Understanding the roots of this division and debate can help to not only understand our own beliefs better, but safeguard us from going to extremes that are outside of what the Bible commands or permits.  As we will discuss, the history of the baptism debate is a bloody one, marked by ardent conviction and no small controversy.  

In the first several centuries of the church, the doctrines and practice of baptism were somewhat diverse.  The Didache, first penned when some of the apostles were still alive, and later expanded in the next 50-75 years, described the mode of baptism as flexible, though the first preference described was through running, cold water, though it allows for pouring if a means of immersion is not available. It also implies that those being baptized were not infants, as it prescribes fasting for both the baptizee and baptizer.  Scholars generally postulate that through at least the Fourth Century, credobaptism was predominant, at least in part due to the common understanding of it being salvific in nature. 

However, the African church father, Tertullian records the first explicit mention of infant baptism somewhere between AD 200 and 206, though in it, he offers a critique, not support of the practice.  Nevertheless, by the Sixth Century, at least in part due to an evolving understanding of original sin and in response to the heresy of Pelagianism, infant baptism became the near universal practice of the church – and especially as the lines between church and state grew increasingly blurred.       

And so infant baptism remained enshrined in church doctrine and practice with little resistance for the next 1,000 years, until by God’s providence, a little-known German monk named Martin Luther sparked the Protestant Reformation in 1517. Less than five years after Luther’s 95 Theses were penned, the Anabaptist (literally re-baptizer) movement began to gain momentum through much of western Europe.  Apart from their position on believer’s baptism, they also were pacifists and advocated for the separation of church and state, placing them squarely in the crosshairs of both the Roman Catholic Church and many of the Protestant reformers, both of whom viewed them as heretics. In an age where disagreeing with the church meant defying the state, the cost of such convictions was often death. It is believed some 2,500-5,000 anabaptists were executed across Europe for their beliefs in the 16th century.   

By the early 17th century, various baptist movements had taken hold in society as persecution significantly waned.  By 1612, baptists were no longer outlawed from England, and in 1638, the first two baptist churches were founded in the Americas, both in Rhode Island. Just two years earlier, the colony’s founder, Pastor Roger Williams, had established the town of Providence after being banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for teaching the separation of church and state.            

Baptism on a Spectrum

Today, while the baptism debate continues, there is generally much more charity toward differing views than in the past.  The spectrum largely accepted as being within orthodox teaching on baptism runs the gamut from infant baptism by sprinkling to believer’s baptism by immersion. So, while you may be called a heretic for other reasons today, if your view on baptism falls within those wide margins, it’s unlikely that your views on baptism will be the cause.  However, there are still some some churches and denominations where a specific form of baptism is elevated above its station to the place of primary importance.  

Many baptistic churches require an individual to have been baptized as a believer in order to become a member.  This practice, rooted in the anabaptist movement, seeks to ensure that church membership is made up solely of true Christians.  Other paedobaptist churches also seek this ideal, though through other means.  In fact, during the early 17th century, there was great debate on this topic among the American Puritans, revolving around a policy, called the Half Way Covenant, which led to the undermining and diluting of the church in early America.  

Generally speaking, the older the religious tradition, the more likely they are to practice infant baptism, and the more likely they are to believe that baptism saves.  The inverse is also true, with newer Christian traditions tending to favor believer’s baptism, by immersion and as primarily symbolic. It is important to note that, in general, churches that practice infant baptism also practice believer’s baptism for those who come to faith from outside the church later in life.  

Denominations that practice Infant Baptism: Both the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox traditions hold to infant baptism as salvific, believing in baptismal regeneration. Orthodox traditions are a bit of an outlier as they are the only major denominations to practice infant baptism by immersion.  The Lutheran church’s baptism view is similar to that of Roman Catholicism, though a bit softer around the edges. They believe that baptism is only effective by faith, but that this faith is automatically given at baptism.  

Presbyterians hold to the doctrine of Baptismal Efficacy, whereby baptism in a sense saves you, but that salvation is only made effective by faith, even if that faith is many years in the future.  They describe baptism as a sign and seal of God’s covenant grace on a child and a means of installing that child into the covenant community of the church.   

Methodism and Anglicanism have a bit more diversity among their churches, but generally fall somewhere between Presbyterian and Roman Catholic practices.

Denominations that practice only Believer’s Baptism: Baptist denominations, though varied in other doctrinal distinctives, are generally unified in understanding baptism to be symbolic, not salvific, for professing believers only, and through immersion.  Pentecostal denominations as well as most non-denominational churches generally share in these practices, though with some minor variation along the spectrum of Baptismal Efficacy.

Baptismal Theologies from Scripture

Though there are many beliefs along the baptismal spectrum, I want to take a few paragraphs to unpack two of the most common positions among Evangelical Christians.  We’ll examine the classic Reformed Covenantal approach to infant baptism, followed by the Reformed Baptist case for Believer’s Baptism. I leaned heavily on Joel Beeke’s new volume, Essentials of Reformed Systematic Theology in preparing this comparison.    

“A woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. 15 And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us.” 

Acts 16:14,15, NASB1995  

The Case for Infant Baptism: The Scriptural warrant for infant baptism among Presbyterians is rooted in a covenantal understanding of God’s grace, not just to individuals, but more broadly toward His people.  They draw a strong parallel between the act of circumcision in the Old Testament (Genesis 17:11-12) and baptism in the New Testament (Matthew 28:19), suggesting that the latter is a continuation of the former as a physical means of bringing a child into the covenant community of the church.   

While they acknowledge that there is no explicit evidence of infant baptism in the Scripture, they counter that there is also no example of an adult being baptized who is already part of a household of faith.  Because of the missional nature of the New Testament church, what is recorded in the Bible is only baptisms of new converts coming into the newly-minted church. The reformed covenantal perspective points to both circumcision and baptism, as discussed in Colossians 2:11-12, as evidence not only that the two practices are related, but also that the ultimate efficacy of the practices flows, not from the act itself, but from an individual’s genuine faith in Christ. 

Regarding mode of Baptism, though often Presbyterians practice baptism by pouring or sprinkling, they acknowledge that all three modes (immersion, pouring and sprinkling) are acceptable forms of baptism, each with a unique way that it pictures the spiritual work of regeneration through our Triune God. 

“30 and after he brought them out, he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house. 33 And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household. 34 And he brought them into his house and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, having believed in God with his whole household.” 

Acts 16, 20-34 NASB1995 

The Case for Believer’s Baptism alone: The Reformed Baptistic doctrine of believer’s baptism by immersion still affirms the unity of the covenant of Grace while upholding a baptistic view of the New Testament church.  They argue that John 4:1-2 and Matthew 28:18 both describe and prescribe the baptism of disciples – those who choose to follow Jesus.  There is in the book of Acts, a pattern of calling hearers to “repent and be baptized”, as seen in Acts 2:38.  Paul, in Romans 6:3 likens baptism to being baptized into His death, and in Galatians 3:27, he writes, “For as many of you who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” These passages suggest that baptism is chosen by the recipient, and that it is seen as integral to the believer’s union with Christ.  

In refuting infant baptism, they point to the silence of the New Testament on the practice as evidence that it was unlikely to have occurred, and more unlikely still, to have been a normative or prescribed practice.  Of the 71 occurrences of the words “baptize” and “baptism”, none command or describe infant baptism explicitly but instead emphasize baptism as a response to regeneration.  Those that embrace the regulative principle of worship further suggest that since the Bible is silent on infant baptism, it ought not to have a place in the worship practices of the church.    

Unity in Our Baptismal Differences?

The final question to be explored in this article is likely the most controversial of them all – can a church faithfully and functionally have an embrace of baptism that, at least for the case of this argument, would allow both of the above expressions of baptism to exist within a single congregation?  If so, what might that look like?  If not, why?

“Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, 3 being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.” 

Ephesians 4:1-6, NASB1995 

At least to a degree, my answer is yes, it is possible for a church to embrace more than one biblically faithful expression of baptism.  I don’t think this is true with all secondary doctrinal divides, but when it comes to the question of baptism, I think there is merit to the pursuit and preservation of unity as the passage above commands.  Of course, much depends on which two views of baptism are being embraced.  It would be awfully difficult, for example, for a church to endorse both a Roman Catholic view of Baptism and a Pentecostal view of Baptism.  Imagine, for example, they were preaching on the above passage, and came to Ephesians 4:5.  “One baptism” means something very different to a Catholic compared to a Pentecostal, with little doctrinal crossover.  

However, suppose your church was reformed in nature, and you had leaders from both Presbyterian and Reformed Baptistic backgrounds.  In the same scenario as above, there is so much shared doctrine at the root of your views on baptism that preaching on Ephesians 4:5 would be possible while still being faithful to both traditions.  In fact, it could be a good opportunity to share both the differing views, and why the church chooses to unite and not divide on this question.  

I could see such a church allowing membership for all who have put their faith in Christ, whether baptized as infants or adults.  In such an environment, congregants could decide whether their family would pursue infant baptism or believer’s baptism in accordance with their own personal convictions. In such an environment, instead of derided and caricaturized, differing views could be discussed openly and freely with leaders modeling deference and others-mindedness to brothers and sisters in Christ who hold differing, Scripturally-warranted positions on secondary issues.  What a beautiful church that could be! What a grand fulfillment of the call to walk “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

May the Lord be pleased to grant us humility, gentleness, and peace, united in the glorious Gospel into which we were baptized, to the glory of our God and the good of His people!