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Update 50 pages 6-7.

Should we baptize infants?

Michael Saward, a member of BI's Council of Reference.
 

Should we baptise infants?

Say 'no' to infant baptism and what is the alternative? There's no trace of "dedication" in scripture after Pentecost which, anyway, involved (in Old Testament practice) the sacrifice of rams, pigeons or doves. Have you ever seen blood sacrifices at infant dedications?

The first question a Christian couple have to ask is quite stark. Is this baby, the fruit of our bodies, to be treated as a little heathen in our home or is it, in some sense, part of the Christian community? If the former, you certainly can't dedicate it. If the latter, you evidently shouldn't dedicate it as there is no New Testament precedent without an accompanying blood sacrifice. Deadlock.

But is that really the biblical Christian response? No, it isn't. Let's do some bible study. God made Abraham an "eternal covenant." (Genesis 12 and 17). Paul acknowledges that it is the same promise as that available to Christians (Galatians 3 and Romans 4). The contrast between the "Old" and "New" covenants isn't between the "front of the bible" and the "back of the bible" but rather between the covenant made with Moses and the Jewish nation (Exodus 24) and that made by Jesus (Hebrews 8-9) for the sins of mankind.

The Mosaic covenant was made obsolete by Jesus. The "eternal" covenant with Abraham was made to him and his male heirs. They were given the sign and seal of God's promise in the act of circumcision. They were, therefore, "sons of the covenant", the heirs of the divine promise. But Paul also saw (Galatians 3) that Christ opened the covenant up to women as well as men who thus became "sons" of Abraham, co-heirs of the promise. Now male children in the Jewish family were, by circumcision, fully part of God's people. Christ, giving women also a full place, showed that male and female alike were "sons" of Abraham. But circumcision was an inappropriate sign for females and, right from the start, Christians accepted that baptism was to be a replacement sign, though the eternal covenant remained the same.

If, then, the children were genuinely part of the covenant community, could baptism be withheld from them? The terms of Jesus' covenant are "better" (Hebrews 7 & 8) but this isn't so if the children are now to be deprived of the covenant sign which their ancestors had enjoyed. The children, alone, would be worse off, if they were not marked with the sign. Moreover, Paul (1 Corinthians 7:14) says that a child of even one believing parent is not "unclean" (i.e. a Gentile) but "holy", the very word used elsewhere for the believing community. So, the child of a Christian parent is to be treated as part of the "holy" community and the sign of the covenant is rightly their inheritance. God's saving promise is open to them, sealed by the baptismal act. They can, of course, reject it as they become adults, but it is not to be withheld from them in the meantime. For it to become fully meaningful they must, with heart and mind, accept the covenant promise as they grow to maturity.

This was the practice of the early church. Origen says that infant baptism was "the tradition received from the apostles". The practice in Rome, at the same time, (early third century) was, says Hippolytus, to "first baptise the little ones. For those who cannot speak, their parents should speak, or another who belongs to their family." Twenty years later, Cyprian says: "you say infants ought not to be baptised. No one agreed with you in our Council." Both Augustine and Ambrose linked baptism with circumcision as, a thousand years later, did Calvin and the Anglican Reformers.

So where are we? An eternal covenant, marked by a sign - circumcision - for males only, is opened to females at the time of Christ and baptism becomes its sign. It is given to infants also and there isn't a trace of controversy about that in the New Testament. The early fathers trace it back to the Apostles and link it with Abraham. The church (apart from a few sects) kept it and only after the emergence of the Baptists in the 16th century was it seriously questioned. The vast majority of Christians world-wide still practice it. So scripture, tradition and reason support it. What I've written is a mere outline of the case, but I am persuaded by it and totally unpersuaded by its opponents' case, which relies on a few texts, not directly concerned with the place of children.

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This web page was last updated on 22nd January 2006.