Infant Baptism Question

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I was asked recently by a Christian friend to explain why I believe in and practice infant baptism. I thanked him for his willingness to consider the biblical evidence for the practice of household baptism and sent him this summary. Hopefully, this can be helpful to others who are interested in the subject.

I think to understand this topic we really need to back up and understand two subjects that are major themes in the Bible and which characterize the way God deals with man in general and throughout all time: grace and incarnation.

Grace, of course, is God's unilateral action for the benefit of man taken out of His love for man. Incarnation is the use of physical means to deliver grace. This is perhaps the main theme of the Bible and there are many examples. God showed His grace through incarnation when he:

- made man, breathing into him the spirit of life, and making him with a physical body in a physical creation,

- gave man His Word through the prophets and the Scriptures (making God's people a people of "The Book"),

- overlooked man's sin in the Old Testament through animal sacrifices done in faith,

- joined with man in covenant through the physical sign of circumcision, and

- sent His Son in the flesh as the ultimate expression of His grace toward man through incarnation.

This is how God works with man - He brings His grace to us through incarnation. In the early church, the Gnostics were the first major group to reject this understanding of grace & incarnation, as they said only the spiritual can be pure and good - the physical is corrupted and should be eliminated whenever possible. This kind of thinking has crept into the Christian church in many ways, for example, in our understanding of baptism, the Lord's Supper, and the eternal kingdom of God. In all these cases, many Christians have lost the understanding of incarnation - that God is bringing His grace to them through physical means. Instead, baptism is viewed as just a human act of obedience toward God, the Lord's Supper as just a human act of remembrance, and heaven as just an ethereal place in the clouds.

With the understanding of grace and incarnation, the statements in the Bible about baptism and faith come together. God brings His grace through His gift of faith and through the physical means of baptism. This is why the Bible says we are saved by faith and we are saved by baptism. These statements don't contradict, but complement each other as they describe God's grace through incarnation. Does baptism in itself save without faith - no. Can faith without baptism save - yes because God can work without physical means, yet He commands us to use the means of baptism, so this should be our normal practice. We should not try to separate faith and baptism because God does not - He wants to express His grace through incarnation. He does this for our benefit, not His, because we are physical beings and physical means help us understand and remember that God's grace has come to us.

Regarding babies and baptism, remember that it is God's grace, not our works or IQ that saves us. From the beginning, God created the family and has always included the family in His covenants. For example, in the Mosaic covenant, the children were brought into the covenant on the 8th day through the means of circumcision (grace & incarnation). The babies became part of the "people of God," another great theme we could trace through Old and New Testament to see how consistently God has worked with man. The circumcision and inclusion into the covenant happened because God promised it to His people, not because of any considerations of the babies' cognitive abilities. In the New Covenant, the Jews heard the New Covenant promise given to them on Pentecost (Acts 2:39), "This promise is to you and your children … " Later in Acts we see multiple households being baptized (look up "household" in the O.T. to see who this includes), and Jesus says in Matt 21:16 (quoting Psalm 8:2) that "Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You (God) have perfected praise." Can babies receive God's gift of faith through baptism? Yes, in fact, Jesus says that "paidion" (Greek meaning primarily infant or by extension half-grown child) are the most suitable subjects for God's grace (Matt 18:2-11, Matt 19:13-14, Luke 18:16-17) because they are not proud and obstinate, thinking that they know better and don't need God's grace.