A Scriptural Critique of Infant Baptism

Selected Scriptures

  A couple of weeks ago I gave a message on the issue of baptism and when I introduced that I was going to do that I said that I wanted to give a follow up message on the issue of infant baptism and I'm going to do that this morning.
 
Now I confess that this may seem more like a theological class lecture.  You may feel like you've just enrolled at the Master Seminary.  That's okay, and I warn you in the back rows there who maybe tend to wander anyway because you're so far away, hang in there.  This is really a provocative and important and far-reaching issue to deal with.
 
Let me explain for some of you that might not understand.  There is a wide-spread belief in the church that babies are to be baptized and so soon after their birth they are taken to the church, whether it's a Roman Catholic Church, or whether it's a Presbyterian Church, or whether it's a Reformed Church or a Lutheran Church, an Anglican Church, Episcopalian Church, they are taken to the church and they are sprinkled with water on the head, a little bit of water is dripped on their head and that constitutes their Christian baptism.  This is very widespread; this is all over the world, in fact.  This is the influence of the post-reformation European church, and it has spread wherever that influence has gone.
 
Now the result of this is that you have baptized non-Christians all over the world.  They were baptized, as infants, with what they believed was a Christian baptism and an initiation into the church, and an initiation into salvation.  And yet they are not Christians.  They have not come to personal confession of faith in Christ and so they are baptized, but they are non-Christians.  On the other hand you have the same group of people who are actually not baptized at all because that baptism is not New Testament baptism.  So they are baptized non-Christians who have really never been baptized at all, in the true sense. 
 
It is also true that many people are, particularly in that movement, many people do come to true faith in Christ.  They may start by being baptized as an infant in Presbyterian, or Lutheran, or Reformed Church, or Anglican or Episcopalian Church or whatever church it is that does infant baptism, they are baptized as a child, they do come to true faith in Jesus Christ but are never baptized by immersion because the church teaches that that is not appropriate. 
 
In fact, after the reformation if somebody was re-baptized who was baptized as an infant, they were labeled an Anabaptist and persecuted.  It was not uncommon for that persecution to reach a fever pitch, so that after the Reformation you had protestant people who believed in infant baptism persecuting people who believed in believer's baptism.  It became a serious issue, even to the point where some people who believed in adult immersion after confession of faith in Christ and were re-baptized were killed.
 
So this was a heated issue.  We can be glad it isn't quite that furious today, but it is still an issue of immense importance in the church, because, as I said, you have baptized non-Christians and unbaptized Christians and in both cases you have a problem, a serious problem.  We have certain the present largest unbaptized population of professing Christians ever, and that unbaptized population would be made up of people who were baptized as infants and don't feel they need to be baptized; therefore, they are really unbaptized in the true way, and all those other people who are hearing the gospel today through television, and radio, and in the sort of seeker friendly churches where baptism is not practiced.  So you have this massive population of unbaptized professing Christians everywhere.
 
Now few things in the New Testament are more unmistakable than the issue of baptism.  It's just plain and simple.  Jesus said, "Go and preach the gospel, and baptize."  And Peter said, "Repent and be baptized."  It couldn't be much more clearly expressed than that.  Even so we have wide spread non-compliance to this issue.
 
Now this is of great importance to me because I feel as a Christian preacher, as a Christian pastor, as a shepherd of God's flock, as somebody whose responsible to the Lord for ministry I need to preserve what is precious to the Lord, right, in the church.  Now there are only two ordinances the Lord gave us, just two.  He gave us baptism and the Lord's Table, and He said, "Just do these two things."  They are symbols.  Baptism, as we know, is a symbol depicting the death of an individual in Christ, burial, and resurrection and newness of life.  The Lord's Table is the symbol of the cross both the body of Jesus Christ symbolizing the bread, symbolizing the cup, and we are enjoined to carry those out in the church. 
 
This is important to me because it's part of the stewardship of responsibility that I have to discharge before the Lord.  It grieves me that some churches, like the Quaker's Church and the Friend's Church that will not practice communion.  It also grieves me that there are many, many churches, many of them, thousands upon thousands of them, tens of thousands of them all over the world that will not properly practice Christian baptism in spite of what the New Testament says.  This is a matter of obedience.  This is a matter of honor to the Lord.  And it's of great importance to me.
 
Some years ago I was invited to be the President of a great educational institution here in our country, and as I contemplating whether I wanted to leave the pastorate here at Grace Church some years ago and go do this, the thing that stuck in my mind most was if I was there I wouldn't be able to discharge my calling from the Lord to lead the church, and it struck me and I said this to the people at the time, I can't do this because I need to lead the people of God in the ordinances that the Lord has commanded us because I believe He's given me to the church and how am I going to baptize people and how am I going to lead them to the Lord's Table in that environment?  This has always been very important to me because the Lord didn't give us that much that we would get confused about it and He wants us to carry the responsibility out. 
 
Baptism is critically important, and I went into that two weeks ago.  Baptism is critically important.  It is to be understood and it is to be practiced.  Standing in the way of that understanding is a huge barrier and that huge barrier is infant baptism.  As I said, most of the mass of evangelized TV/radio converts are left to them selves and maybe never even hear about baptism.  They don't have any accountability for baptism, they are not under any church authority, but in addition to them you have this huge crowd of millions of people who believe in infant baptism.  And that too confuses the issue greatly and acts as a barrier to a true understanding of baptism and to obedience to that understanding.  It's not a minor matter.  It has never been a minor matter, as I said, during the time of the Reformation people were called heretics if they were baptized in a New Testament way by those who were infant baptizers.  They were persecuted and, as I said, sometimes executed.
 
Now as years have gone on we've gotten kind of comfortable and just sort of said well they believe in infant baptism and we don't and they're our brothers and sisters and that's true.  And it's certainly not a reason to call them non-Christians, and it's certainly not right to call them heretics, and it's certainly not appropriate to not have fellowship with them, but it is right to truly understand what Scripture says, so they can come into compliance with the word of God.  Time has come after all these years since the Reformation to strip off these remnants of Catholicism that never got dealt with during the Reformation and have been perpetuated and return to the simple New Testament design.  And I want to address that with you this morning.
 
Now there are five reasons why I reject infant baptism, five reasons and I'm telling you, folks, I can't get all that I want to say out this morning so you're only going to get I hope the best of what's here, but these are very important points.  Point number one, and this ought to end the argument.  Infant baptism is not in Scripture.  Infant baptism is not in Scripture.  And against that statement there is no evidence, there is no refuting of that statement.  Scripture, nowhere, advocates infant baptism.  It nowhere mentions infant baptism.  It doesn't exist in the Bible.  There is no example of it, there is no comment on it; it's not there. 
 
It is therefore, impossible to prove that infant baptism is valid from the New Testament.  It's impossible to support it from the New Testament or for that matter from the Old Testament.  German theologian, Schumacher wrote, "All traces of infant baptism, which have been asserted to be found in the New Testament must first be inserted there."  He's right.  The host of German and front ranked theologues and scholars of the church of England, the Church of England, the Anglican Church, which believes in infant baptism, a host of their scholars have united to affirm, not only the absence of infant baptism from the New Testament, but from apostolic and post apostolic times.  It isn't in the New Testament and it didn't exist in the earliest church.  They believe it arose around the second or third century.  Lutheran professor, Curt Allen, after intensive study of infant baptism says, "There is no definite proof of the practice until after the third century," and he says, "This cannot be contested."
 
Catholic professor of theology, Haggenmacher, writes, "This controversy has shown that it is not possible to bring in absolute proof of infant baptism by basing one's argument on the Bible."  Good!  B. B. Warfield, who is no mean theologian, who was astute and really a great, great theologian who influenced my life in my seminary days, B. B. Warfield affirmed, he was by the way an advocate of infant baptism, but he affirmed the absence of infant baptism from the Bible. 
 
Among the Calvinists, among the reformed people there is a very important principle, which many of them like to use.  It's called the regulative principle, and it says this:  if Scripture doesn't command it, it is forbidden.  Now if they would just stick with that they'd be all right.  The Scripture doesn't demand it; it cannot be introduced into the church as normative.  The theme of the Reformation, of course Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Sola Christus, that is faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone, also Sola Scriptura, Scripture alone.  The theme, the great by-word of the Reformation was Scripture only, Scripture only, Scripture, Scripture, Scripture, and yet if you go to Scripture you can't find one single solitary word about infant baptism.  It's not in the Bible.  It still is defended, however, amazingly and still practiced as if was biblical.  It's really amazing.  I can understand how people within the protestant church can disagree about an interpretation of Scripture. 
 
I really find it very hard for myself to understand how they can argue about something that isn't in the Bible, as over against what is.  It's one thing to say, "Well I understand that passage this way, and you understand it that way, or I understand this doctrine and you understand it that way."  It's another thing to say, "I believe what's in the Bible and I don't believe what's outside the Bible."  That's a completely different issue, but that in fact is what we have.
 
Now I would expect Roman Catholicism to engage in that practice because Roman Catholicism has two sources of authority.  On the one hand they have the Bible, on the other hand and it's as empty as my right hand, they have tradition.  You see where the weight is.  But in the Catholic system there is what is called tradition.  It is known as perdition or the magisterium and it is the accumulation of materials outside the Bible that bear equal authority with the Scripture. 
 
Now we're not surprised that the Roman Catholic system because they believed that the Catholic Church is the unique recipient of post biblical revelation, that is to say God has given His word to the church beyond the Bible.  And therefore, it carries equal weight with Scripture.  We're not surprised that a system that believes there is extra biblical material that has equal weight with Scripture would come up with infant baptism and make it an absolute in their system.  Not surprising!  In fact, the Roman Catholic asserts that it is the only recipient of revelation beyond the Bible.  Not only is it the only recipient of revelation, but it is the only and infallible interpreter of all revelation both traditional and biblical.
 
So when we know that Roman Catholics baptize babies that fits into their magisterium, but when you come to Reformation people who say Scripture, only, Scripture only, and they had a Reformation and they basically dumped tradition and they dumped the magisterium, and they said it's the Bible, it's the Bible, it's the Bible how come they hung on to infant baptism?  It's not there; it's not there.  It's a relic of popurrie. 
 
Now we would understand the church history would be Rome's hermeneutic. Hermeneutic is a word that has to do with interpretation.  We would understand that history can interpret the Bible for Rome, but history can't interpret the Bible for us.  It doesn't matter to a Bible interpreter what history has done, what some counsel said, what some pope said, it doesn't matter what some visionary said.  The way you interpret Scripture is not by something outside of it, but by what is in it, right? 
 
The Bible is its own interpreter.  Use normal historical grammatical, interpretation, you'd take the words as they are, you interpret the Scripture with a scripture, you don't need tradition, you don't need the magisterium of some religious system.  Church history can be Rome's hermeneutic.  In other words they interpret the Bible from their tradition, but it has never been the hermeneutic of the reformed.  It has never been our hermeneutic to say, "Well I don't know what that means so let me consult some pope." 
 
The Jews did that in the Old Testament.  They say, "Well we're not sure what this means so let's ask Rabbi so an so.  If you don't know what the Bible means you don't go to somebody who has infallible revelation as to its meaning.  You dig into the text to discern it.  God does not interpret Scripture through history.  God does not interpret Scripture through tradition, through rites or ceremonies or doctrines that are true simply because some religious system says they're true.  Only an honest interpretation of Scripture in which you exegete the text itself can yield the meaning of that Scripture.  Reading traditional history back into the Bible is not a legitimate way to interpret it.  History is no hermeneutic. 
 
Now it is also true that Scripture, they'll bring this up, they'll say this:  yes it's not in the Bible, but it's also true that Scripture nowhere forbids infant baptism.  Now if I can get into a debate and we're going to debate that point, I think I can win.  You're telling me that's it's okay because it's not there?  It should be an ordinance of the church because it's not there?  Do you realize how much is not there?  You can make an ordinance out of everything that's not there.  I mean just use your imagination and figure out where that could go.  That's nothing but an argument from silence, which is no argument at all.  It provides no basis for acceptance, certainly no basis for a mandate for infant baptism as some kind of ubiquitous divinely ordained ordinance that all children of believers or all children of church members ought to engage in. 
 
The fact that it's not there proves absolutely nothing, except that it proves that it's not valid.  Certainly doesn't prove anything on its behalf.  To justify that sprinkling of babies ought to be done because it's not forbidden in Scripture is to standardize what's not in the Bible as if it were the standard of the church.  It's to imprint with divine authority something that men invent to open the way to any ritual, and ceremony, any teaching, any anything that isn't forbidden specifically in Scripture. 
In fact, at the time of the Reformation we all associate Martin Luther, you know, the monk who saw the truth of the gospel by faith and grace and confronted the Roman Catholic Church.  Went up on day and nailed his thesis on the door of Wittenberg there, in the 1500's and this was a big moment.  He was calling the church to take a good hard look at, of course, selling indulgences.  They were telling people you could get forgiveness of your sins if you paid enough money to the church and you could buy an indulgence, in other words you could buy forgiveness.  He didn't like that.  And we don't blame him for that. 
 
Then he went from there to understanding justification by faith.  And Martin Luther said that the only way you're redeemed is through faith and grace, and we all understand that, and that's what gave birth to the Reformation.  And Luther went so far to say that it has to come out of the Bible. 
 
Luther really fought the Catholic system.  Let me quote what he said, "The church needs to rid itself of all false glories that torture Scripture by inserting personal ideas into the Scripture, which lend to it their own sense."  "No," he said.  "Scripture, Scripture, Scripture, for me constrain, press, compel me with God's word."  That's Martin Luther.  And Martin Luther, he wasn't just some stumbling, bumbling local monk.  He was a brilliant doctor of theology.  Martin Luther was one of the brightest theologians in the entire Catholic Church at the time.  And he was saying it's Scripture, Scripture, Scripture, for him.
 
Well there's nothing in the Scripture about infant baptism.  And in a minute I'll tell you what happened to Luther in the transition from what he just said to eventually capitulating to do infant baptisms.  Another thing the baby baptizers use for support they try to go to Matthew 18, where Jesus said in verse 3, "Accept you become as a little child you can't enter the kingdom."  Well that's not talking about babies.  That's talking about believers.  You have to become like a little child to get into the kingdom.  What does that mean?  Well if you're going to come into God's kingdom you don't come with a record of all your great achievements.  You haven't got any.  A little child has no achievements, right?  A little child has accomplished nothing, done nothing.  They're not productive.  Have you noticed?  They don't do anything.  They just have to have things done to them all the time.  They don't achieve anything, accomplish anything, they don't make any contribution at all, except just the sheer joy of their presence.  And that's what the Lord is saying. 
 
You come into the kingdom without any achievements, without any accomplishments, without any curriculum vitae, without having achieved or accomplished anything.  You come in naked and bare and stripped and needy.  That's how you come.  He's talking to religious leaders and He's talking to the disciples and saying, "Don't expect that somehow all the stuff you've achieved is going to get you into the kingdom."  Remember the apostle Paul?  Philippians 3, You know I was of the circumcision, circumcised the 8^th day, of the tribe of Benjamin, of the people of Israel, you know zealous as to the law, went through the whole deal and he said at the end it's manure, right?  It's manure.  I can't bring that list of achievements.  That's all Jesus is saying. 
 
In Matthew 19 and Mark 10, you remember Jesus said to the disciples, "Let the little children come to me."  Remember the little children came to Him.  That's another Scripture they like to use and it says, "Let the little children come to Me, don't forbid them for such is the kingdom of heaven."  And Jesus gathered up the little children there in Matthew 19, Luke 10, both record it.  And He blessed them. 
 
Well in the first place how can that advocate infant baptism?  He didn't baptize them.  He didn't baptize them.  That's no evidence about anything about baptism.  He just picked up some little children and said, "God has a special care for these little ones who are too young to either reject the truth or accept the truth."  God has a special care for them and He pulled them into His arms and demonstrated that special care by blessing them.  They weren't necessarily the children of believing parents.  We don't even know who their parents were.  For all we know some of them might have been Gentile kids and they might have been uncircumcised pagans.  The idea that you baptize all these infants of believing parents or of church member parents based upon that Scripture is just beyond connection.  Jesus didn't baptize them.  Jesus didn't cause them to be baptized.  He didn't suggest that they should be baptized.  He didn't say anything about their parents, whether they were believing or non believing parents.  All He said was by what He did, "Children are precious to God.  He takes care of them.  He blesses them."  That's all.
 
Then the people who believe in infant baptism try to advocate it from two books, Acts and I Corinthians.  In Acts and I Corinthians you have five mentions of a household and they say, "Well in a household you must have babies."  And it says that households were baptized; therefore, babies were baptized.  Well certainly that's an inference.  It doesn't say that.  There's never an instance of a baby being baptized in any of those households.  It never identifies them.  And households simply mean, it could mean family, it could mean servants who are a part of that household.  They suggest that some babies were baptized in those households as an act of solidarity.  The father, they say, served as a surrogate for the faith of the children.  Surrogate faith?  What is that?  You mean I can believe and my child is saved by my faith?  That's not what the New Testament teaches.  That's a severe challenge to individual salvation, as well as an insertion into the text because no babies are ever mentioned and no babies are ever mentioned being baptized.
 
Look at these five:  I'll just run them by you quickly.  Cornelius' house, Acts 10, the gospel is preached by Peter, Cornelius heard it and it says they all heard the word, they believed it, the Spirit fell, they were all baptized.  All heard, all believed, Spirit came on all, they were all baptized.  In the jailer's house, Acts 16, the Philippian jailer, Paul you remember gave them the gospel.  It says all heard the gospel all were baptized.  Chapter 18, it was in the house of Crispus, all believed, all were baptized. 
 
The other two occur in I Corinthians in the, the other two are the account of Lydia and Stephanas.  Lydia is in the book of Acts.  But in the case of Lydia it's the same thing.  We must understand the same thing must have occurred.  They heard, they believed, they were baptized.  Stephanas, they heard, they believed, they were baptized.  I mean it's all basically the same pattern.  They all hear the gospel, they all believe, they all receive the Spirit; they all are baptized.  That excludes infants because infants can't hear and believe. 
 
The household, then, is defined.  It is defined as those capable of hearing, understanding, believing.  That's the definition of the household.  In Stephanas' household, which is in I Corinthians 1, "All who were baptized," it says, "All who were baptized were devoted to the ministry of the saints."  Babies can't be devoted to the ministry of the saints.  It says, "All who were baptized were helping in the spiritual work of the church.  It's impossible for infants. 
 
In the case of Lydia, in Acts, her heart was opened when she heard the gospel.  "The gospel was preached and her heart was opened," it says.  And so we understood she heard the gospel, she believed, others must have heard the gospel, their hearts were opened and they believed and they were baptized.  And by the way, to assume there were children in the house is maybe stretching it since apparently she had no husband.  She apparently was a single person. 
 
In John 4:53, it says about a nobleman who Jesus talked with and He healed his son.  It says about that man, "He himself believed and his whole household, he himself believed and his whole household."  They all believed, household belief then household baptism.  Where there's no faith there's no baptism.
 
In Acts 2:38, let me show you this.  Turn in your Bible for a minute to Acts 2:38.  Here is another Scripture, which they use to defend infant baptism.  Acts 2:38, Peter is closing the sermon on the Day of Pentecost, and he says in verse 38, "Repent, let each of you be baptized."  So we see the sequence: repent, be baptized.  And you'll receive forgiveness and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, then in verse 39, "For the promise," he says, "Is for you and your, what, children."  Oh, they say, "See the promise here for the children, this is an important Scripture."  Repent and be baptized and the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself. 
 
Now they see your children as an illusion to the baptism of children, and, of course, that's a stretch.  There's nothing about baptism of children here whatsoever.  Well what is being said here?  Do you understand what's being said?  He's talking to some Jews, okay?  And they're gathered around him and they're in the city of Jerusalem and he said, "Look, I'm saying to you repent, come to faith in Christ, be baptized in His name, you'll receive the forgiveness of your sins, you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and this promise is not only for you but it's for your children." 
 
Now how obvious is that?  What's he saying?  He's saying this isn't isolated for the crowd today.  This is for anybody who comes into the future, right?  This is for your children, and your children's children, and your children's, children's children.  He's simply saying, "This promise goes on and on and on.  And for all who are a far off it's for Gentiles too."  So he's saying for your children, Jews in the future, and for Gentiles as well in the future.  Anybody, anybody who repents of sin, anybody who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, anybody who receives a forgiveness of sin and the gift of the Holy Spirit, that promise is fulfilled to anybody whether they're Jew or Gentile.  That's all he's saying here.  There's nothing about babies here.  The children he's speaking about are the offspring of the crowd there.  This is for all future generations to be called to the same salvation promises and the same salvation blessings.
 
Now one other Scripture they use is I Corinthians 7, and I'll show you this one and then I'll make some more general comments.  I Corinthians 7:12-14, is another Scripture they like to use, and again it doesn't say anything about baptism at all, none of them do, but this is where they have to go if they're going to try to find a biblical foundation.  Now he's talking to people in various marital situations here.  And in verse 12 he says, "Look, this is something I'm going to say to you.  It's not a direct quote of Jesus, it's still inspired and it's from God, but it's not directly quoted from Jesus."  He's been saying some things that come right out of the instruction of Jesus, but he says, I'm saying this.  This isn't quoting the Lord here.  But here's the principle, "If any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, okay?  You got an unconverted wife, your wife is not a Christian and she wants to live with you.  She doesn't want to separate.  She's not a Christian, she doesn't believe, but she wants to be with you, then you shouldn't send her away, shouldn't send her away.  That means divorce.  That's a word for divorce in the Greek.  Don't divorce her. 
 
The idea was Christians were coming to Christ and they were saying, wow, I don't want to be unequally yoked with an unbeliever.  He just got through saying that in Chapter 6, you know.  You don't want to be connected up with any body whose sinful, so maybe you're married to an unbeliever and you don't want to continue that relationship, you want to marry a Christian.  Well look, if that unbeliever wants to stay you keep that marriage together.  The next verse says it in the reverse.  The woman has an unbelieving husband and consents to live with her don't send him away. 
 
So stay in that marriage even though you have an unconverted spouse.  Why?  Verse 14, "The unbelieving husband is sanctified."  What does that mean?  Set apart.  Set apart to what?  To blessing.  What happens to that unbeliever is by being married to a believer he gets the spillover of God's work in your life.  He gets the spillover of God's blessing.  God is so kind and God is so gracious.  For the sake of that unbeliever God would