Baptism and Children: Their Place in the Old and New Testaments

Douglas Wilson

 

Introduction

The prospect of writing a short essay on the subject of infant baptism is daunting, in part because of how clearly I remember those years when the kind of argumentation I am about to present was entirely nonsensical to me. So while I have no desire to exasperate my baptistic brethren, yet at the same time my prayer and hope is that multiple passages of Scripture may speak clearly to this vexed subject from an unexpected quarter.

During my years as a convinced baptist, my approach was the same as what I have heard numerous times from others. If you want to understand Christian baptism, the thinking goes, then simply look up every place that Scripture speaks to the subject B get a concordance and look up baptism, baptized, baptist, and so on. Countless Christians have done this, and have consequently come away with the unshakeable conviction that a person first believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, and then afterwards he is baptized. And further, we don=t have any examples of the apostle Peter baptizing the infant Demetrius at Capernaum. So why make this complicated?

This procedure of turning to the Scriptures is of course not wrong. I hope that my argument below suggests the opposite. But there is a problem, and it is one of limiting the range of words to be looked up in that concordance. We must also consider what the Bible teaches about children, generations, promises, covenants, olive trees, olive shoots, descendents, and, as television advertisements put it, much, much more.

The debate about infant baptism is fundamentally a debate about children, and not really a debate about baptism at all. A credo-baptist could consistently offer baptism to the infant John the Baptist, having been assured by the scriptural narrative that John the Baptist was regenerate from the womb. The problem arises with those children about whom we have no specific revelation. What does the Bible teach about children of believers as a class? If we have determined that the children of believers are promised to us by God, and received by God Himself, and that we are commanded to receive them, then we may safely argue from that status to the sacrament. To illustrate the method, we know, for example, that believing women are in Christ (Gal. 3:28), that they are faithful recipients of baptism (Acts 8:12), and so we can argue easily to their participation in sacrament of the Lord=s Supper, although the Bible never records an instance of women partaking of that sacrament. We argue from their position in Christ to the sacrament. We must not argue from the scriptural silence on the sacrament (along with hermeneutical assumptions about the need for Aexpress warrant@) to nagging doubts about their position in Christ.

And this is why a precondition for fruitful debate on the subject of infant baptism is the development of a robust theology of children. When we banish thoughts of water from our minds, and consider children of believers simply as children, the scriptural teaching here is abundant. And in this regard, perhaps I may conclude this introduction with one last autobiographical detail. I learned the Scripture=s teaching about children from my father, who remains to this day a settled baptist. He is the one who taught me to take the many texts about children at face value B and I did so long before I came to paedobaptist convictions. The reason for my doctrinal shift only came when I read an essay that linked what I had long believed about children with the waters of baptism.^[1] In my mind, there was no reason to move from the New Testament texts on baptism up the very steep hill to the baptism of infants. But when the motion went the other way, from what Scripture says about children, all the disturbed pebbles soon became an avalanche, and the whole thing was impossible for me to stop B despite how much I wanted it stop.

 

A Review of Texts

The Bible is not silent on the subject of our children. Old Testament and New both unite in teaching that children are a blessing, that they are to be brought up within the covenant of God, and that God promises His kindness to them, and to their children in turn. One of the things we need to learn is how to read such passages without being scared by the fact that the subject of baptism will eventually emerge from this study and unsettle everything. But this is part of our duty nonetheless.

Many key texts address this question of generational faithfulness. Before considering them, it must be noted that the great force of these passages is cumulative. Paul Jewett once commented that when it came to baptism as an isolated subject, the paedobaptist case was weak, in his view. But when the discussion moved to the topic of the covenant, the result was a juggernaut. It is a similar situation here. I would urge the baptist reader to avoid interacting with these verses individually as he works through them, but rather consider them first all together. Then, having looked at them assembled together, the treatment of individual passages will be oriented to the flow of the argument.

Marriage is a creation ordinance, and the purposes behind marriage will remain the same as long as marriage endures. Because the new covenant has not overthrown the institution of marriage, it also has not overthrown the reason for marriage.

 

And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth (Mal. 2:15)^[2]

 

Why does God make a man and woman one spirit, and one flesh? The reason is that He is seeking godly seed, godly offspring. An ethical exhortation follows immediately B the fathers in this passage have to take heed to their spirit, and not betray the wife of their youth, their wife by covenant. It follows that such unfaithfulness to one=s wife by covenant interferes with God=s purpose and intent for believing marriage, which is believing children. If this is God=s purpose, it should of course be our purpose. If parents have the same intention for their offspring that God does, then that intention is for godly seed. This refers to purpose and intention, and not to wishful thinking. Of course, many believing parents think it would be wonderful to have believing children, but they do not think of it as the point. But just as a man plows a field with the intention of a harvest, or opens a business with the assumption that it will prosper, so Christian parents are to bring children into the world with the intention that they walk with God.

As we consider God=s covenant promises, we have to recognize that they are unchangeable precisely because He is unchangeable.

 

Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end (Ps. 102:25-27)

 

Of course, every Christian knows this. God is without shadow or variation due to the change. This is why we are not consumed. But what does this unchanging nature of God have to do with our children? Everything B the promises of God do not shrink in between the old and new covenants, and this is because God does not change. This is made explicit in the next verse. AThe children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee@ (Ps. 102:28). Creation changes, and heaven and earth wear thin like an old pair of Levis. But God does not change, and this is why the children of His servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established in the presence of God.

In the Ten Commandments, God told the people that covenant blessings and curses were connected to whether or not they bowed down to idols. If idolatry was committed, then God would visit iniquity to the third and fourth generations. But for those who were obedient in love, He would show mercy to thousands.

 

Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments (Dt. 5:9-10)

 

Thousands of what? The implication is that His mercy is to thousands of generations. But we do not have to guess, because the point is made explicit two chapters later. AKnow therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations@ (Dt. 7:9). It is important to note here that this generational blessing is one of mercy. God is not blessing all the descendants of Pharisaical boasters. Generational faithfulness is not on the basis of works. These parents trust God for their own salvation, and the salvation of their children, because they are sinners relying on nothing other than God=s gracious promise to show mercy.

God famously established His covenant with Abraham, and this covenant was not limited to Abraham as a believing individual. It included his seed after him.

 

And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations (Gen. 17:7-9).

 

God was promising the world to Abraham, and not just the land of Canaan. Abraham knew this, and rejoiced to see the day of Christ. AFor the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith@ (Rom. 4:13). God promised that the meek would inherit the earth. This promise was given to Abraham and to his seed on the basis of faith. This is important to note, because no one is claiming that children of believers are automatically sent off to heaven (ex opere operato). These promises are extended by God, and only faith can apprehend them. The promise does not come automatically to the children according to the flesh. No covenant child is automatically saved. But whenever a child is born into a believing home, the parents are invited to do what Abraham was invited to do B and that is to believe a promise. Faith is central.

Together with all the prophets, Ezekiel looked forward to the time of the new covenant, the time when the new David would rule over his people. His vision of this time is glorious.

 

And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children=s children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever. Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people (Ez. 37:24-27)

 

The promise is that God will be our people, and we will be His people. It is not that He will be our God, and we will be His individuals. In the time of the new covenant, God establishes a people, and promises that they will be faithful, along with their children, and grandchildren. To seven generations? No, more than that B mercy is shown to seventy times seven. Isaiah longs for this great day as well.

 

As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed=s seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever (Is. 59:21).

 

This is the covenant, and every sinful parent should tremble with joy when he reads these words B provided he reads them in faith. God=s Spirit is upon us as our portion in the covenant. His words will be in our mouths, and will not depart from us. More than this, His words will not depart from the mouths of our children, or grandchildren.

As the gospel progresses gloriously in the world, the impact on descendants is equally glorious.

 

They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them (Is. 65:22-23).

 

Are we the seed of the blessed of the Lord? If we are, then what of our children? They come with us. They are blessed along with us.

God is truly kind to those who fear Him. His mercy extends to them. Again, it is His mercy and kindness that extends to the generations of His saints.

 

But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children=s children; to such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them (Ps. 103:17-18).

 

These promises are to those who keep covenant (which can only be done through faith), and whose obedience to His commandments proceeds from that faith. When this happens, God forgives their sins, and remembers their lawless deeds no more. He bestows His mercy from everlasting to everlasting. He pours out His righteousness upon grandchildren. In the kindness of God, at the time of writing this I have four grandchildren, and so the promise is not a hypothetical one for me. I have four grandchildren to whom God will show mercy and righteousness. And in His kindness, He has even offered promises concerning their children.

Some might complain and say that I am applying promises of historical and temporal blessing from the Old Testament to the spiritual world of new covenant blessings, and that this can only result in confusion.

The problem with this response is the treatment given to such passages within the New Testament. For example, with the passage from Psalm 103 just quoted, we find that our Lord=s mother quoted it as well. She understood the promise as coming to fruition in the child Christ within her. She did not think that her Son was the one who would abrogate all these promises. He was the one in whom they were all yea and amen. She put it this way, when she quoted Psalm 103 in her gratitude.

 

For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name. And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation (Luke 1:48-50).

 

Too many Christians think that God made many temporal and historical promises concerning generations and descendants in the Old Testament, which did not come to fulfillment because of unbelief. Then, in the new covenant, this kind of the promise is abrogated or spiritualized. But Mary understood the promises differently. She saw that God=s covenant kindness, promised to generation after generation, was to be fulfilled through her Son. This fulfillment was to be true fulfillment. Because the Messiah came, God=s mercy could be extended to generation after generation.

The promises of God in the Old Testament do not hit the brick wall of the New Testament. They come to fruition. Consider how the apostle Paul treats a promise to the Israelite families gathered around the foot of Mt. Sinai.

 

Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:1-4).

 

This was the first commandment with a promise. But promise to whom? The promise was for Israelites under the old covenant, and concerned long life in the land of Canaan after the Israelites displaced the pagan nations there. But notice how Paul treats it. He picks it up and applies the commandment, along with the promise annexed to it, to Gentile families in the city of Ephesus in the Roman province of Asia under the new covenant. The land of Canaan is expanded to include the whole earth. What is the basis for this glorious expansion?

 

Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ (Eph. 2:11-13).

 

In days past, Gentiles were outside the commonwealth of Israel. But now they have been brought near. Before the coming of Christ, they were strangers to the covenants of promise. But now, through the blood of Christ, they have been brought near to the covenants of promise. This is why a command given to Israelite children as part of the Sinaitic covenant is passed on to Gentile children in Ephesus, along with the promise. And note that we have not passed from flesh and blood children in the Old Testament to ethereal Aspiritual@ children in the New. We have flesh and blood Jewish children in Deuteronomy and flesh and blood Gentile children in Ephesus. And the promise covers both classes in this life.

These Gentile children are to be brought up in the Apaideia of the Lord.@ They are to receive a Christian education from the ground up. They are received as covenantally clean from the beginning. The children of at least one Christian parent were to be considered hagia, that is, holy ones. The word we normally use to translate this is saint. AFor the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy@ (1 Cor. 7:14). The children of saints are saints.

This is stated on the basis of God=s promise to His people in the Old Testament. Those who were tempted to despair because of Israel=s dismal history were encouraged to look forward. Let God be true and every man a liar. God promises our children to us. Because of unbelief, the promises slip through our fingers. But God in His kindness promised us a day when even this problem would be solved by His grace.

 

Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call (Acts 2:37-39).

 

Peter refers to a promise which extended to his listeners, and to their children. What promise could he be referring to? The promise of the coming effusion of the Holy Spirit, given throughout the Old Testament, is a promise that routinely includes children as recipients of this blessing. And because the Scriptures speak this way, Peter does not hesitate to speak this way. The promise is for us, and for our children, and for those who are far off, and why stop there? It is for their children too. When the Spirit is poured from heaven in this glorious baptism, the water gets everyone wet.

In the chapter after his famous prophecy of the new covenant, Jeremiah continues his discussion of it.

 

And they shall be my people, and I will be their God: And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them: and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me (Jer. 32:38-40)

 

In the new covenant, they will all know the Lord from the least to the greatest. As Jeremiah makes clear here, the children go too. The children are included.

As the stage is set for the arrival of Christ, the last prophet in the Old Testament shows us how God will prepare the way for the Messiah. The way is not prepared through any annihilation of the parent/child relationship, but rather through the restoration of it. AAnd he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord@ (Luke 1:17). Luke records the fact that the angel knows that the Old Testament promised that families would be put right in the coming of the Messiah. And yet, in our day, we have people saying the advent of the Messiah is not related to this turning of fatherly hearts to the spiritual condition of children. But the Scriptures require it. The new covenant has better promises (Heb. 8:6), not worse ones!

Jesus did not arrive in a vacuum. He did not teach new doctrines ex nihilo. He was steeped in the Scriptures, and consequently taught that children belong in our midst. We are disciples, following the Lord, and as adults can fall into the trap of thinking that our understanding and maturity is worthy of the Lord, while that of all these kids underfoot is not worthy of Him. ABut Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. And he laid his hands on them, and departed thence@ (Matt. 19:14; cf. Mark 10:14). We say that to be converted, children need to become more like adults. Jesus said that to be converted, adults need to become more like children. This does not just include kids and toddlers, but exclude infants. Luke expressly mentions the littlest ones. AAnd they brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God@ (Luke 18:15-16).

The kingdom of God is a come-one, come-all kind of thing. Everyone is invited, from the least to the greatest. The Spirit is poured out on old men and young maidens. The glorious effusion of the Spirit is not the time when access to God begins to narrow; rather, it grows and widens out into the great, wide world. So may we then come into the Christian faith by household? Of course (Acts 3:25; 1 Cor. 1:16).

 

And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us (Acts 16:14-15).

 

This is exactly what God promised to Abraham B that he would be a blessing to all the families and households of earth (Acts 3:25). But this argument does not depend, as many assume, upon the assumption that Lydia=s household contained infants, or that the Philippian jailer=s did. It depends upon the assumption that her household was a household. Over the centuries, the faith has grown by individuals, families, tribes, and sometimes nations, and it has done this pretty consistently until the early part of the nineteenth century, when individualists made it necessary to come into the covenant one at a time. We did this because we believed a certain level of maturity and wisdom was necessary before we could praise God rightly. But God has different ideas about what constitutes praise that is worthy of Him. AOut of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger@ (Ps. 8:2). When the evangelical invitation is issued to a household, there is no presumption that the household must contain sucklings. But there is a supposition that if it does, those babes and sucklings are not excluded from adding their voices to ours in the praise of God.

 

A Theology of Children

We are faced with an inescapable reality. God has placed our children in our presence, and we are in covenant with the God who has done so. We will either treat our children as though they are in this covenant together with us, and we will teach them the terms of it, or we will treat them as strangers to that covenant, outsiders. If we treat them as strangers to the covenant, if we say it is not possible for us to disciple our children in evangelical faith, bringing them up in it, then we will have to live with the unhappy consequences of covenant members training up covenant strangers. This would be hard enough, but if we are training them up as covenant strangers when the promises of God have brought them near, then we are not just laboring against Adamic sin in our children (as many parents assume), but we are also laboring to swim against the tide of God=s promises. Too often we assume that things are going badly because the child=s sin is interfering with our parental wisdom. Perhaps we should consider that our theologies are interfering with God=s parental grace. We discipline our children in unbelief B not believing God=s promises and hence not believing indications of His word in our children B and over time, our children finally give up and learn the lessons of our unbelief, which are more conducive to the flesh anyway.

Many say that the nature of faith is that it cannot be Ataught@ to our children. That=s as may be, but we can certainly teach them to doubt. And with regard to the first point, faith cannot be taught without warrant from God, but what I have sought to show above is that we do have warrant from God. Are our children included in the Great Comission? Disciple the nations we are told. How? Baptizing them and teaching them obedience. So, on the authority of God=s promises and commands, we should disciple our children by baptizing them and teaching them to obey in true faith.

The only alternative is to refuse them baptism, and refuse to teach them obedience, because we are busy instilling doubts and scruples. Instead of equipping our children with the shield of faith that extinguishes flaming darts, we too often throw the darts ourselves. But how do we do this? A small girl comes up to her father and says that she believes in Jesus. She is four-years-old. Now, what is the father to do? Given the nature of the case, he must either believe her or disbelieve her. If he disbelieves her, he is teaching her to doubt her profession, just as he doubts it. She thinks she loves Jesus, but her father, an older and wiser Christian, declines to have her baptized or to ask the elders to bring her to the table. She knows that in a certain fundamental sense, she is still considered Aout.@ She must be outside for a reason. Her belief that she loves Jesus must therefore be erroneous, and she must learn to doubt other similar affections as they arise. ATrue@ faith is always just around the corner, and is something that happens (miraculously) to other people apparently. For many children taught this way, this is the way it remains. They leave the faith, breaking the hearts of those parents who (unwittingly) taught them to do so.

This is nothing other than teaching our little ones to doubt the promises of God. We may say that we are doing it for the sake of maintaining true evangelical zeal, not letting anyone in until they display it, but we are actually killing the heart of true covenant faithfulness over generations. We have made dramatic conversions out of paganism the norm, and then, having placed this expectation on our covenant children, we have slowly driven them into nominalism through the false but very common standard of the Aflashy testimony.@ But God told Christian parents to bring up their children in such a way that they have a really boring testimony. This is what it means to bring children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). Children are to grow up in an environment dominated by the Word of God, and they are to be a natural and organic part of that environment. We are not to think of the dinner table as surrounded with mostly Israelites, but with the newly-arrived Amalekite sitting sullenly off to the side in his high chair. Our homes are to be considered as covenantally part of the olive tree, and this certainly includes the olive shoots around the table (Ps. 128).

When we look for certain marked ADamascus road conversion experiences@ in our children, we are setting a false standard. We may be doing this in the name of a high view of what it means to be converted, but we are actually setting the stage for certain compromises that have been seen before in the history of the church. And this refusal to think of our children covenantally is at the heart of the church=s current disarray. This began, for us, in the infamous halfway covenant of New England. That covenant came about, not because standards of coming to the Table were lowered, but rather because those standards were unbiblically and artificially high. In order to come to the Table, baptized children growing up in the church had to demonstrate that they had had a real conversion experience. In other the words, the burden of proof was on the children to show that they should be allowed Ain.@ This made the unmistakeable point that they were still Aout.@

Baptists create this alien mentality in children by refusing baptism. Presbyterians do it by banning children from the Table. But virtually all American Christians do it, and they do it because they do not have a biblical theology of generations. And, having taught our children to doubt the promises and leave the covenant, we take the fact that they do leave as incontrovertible evidence that we were right in excluding them in the first place. We require children to grow big and strong so that we might give them some food after they have done so. Then, when they starve to death, we take it as proving that we were right in not feeding them. Wisdom is vindicated by her children, but in our case, they don=t stick around.

I know that such words may seem harsh, and it is not my intent to give offense. But I have to say that our Lord issued some of His sternest warnings for those who stumbled the little ones. And I also have to say that it is my conviction that we have adopted a theology in the American church which makes the stumbling of little ones a theological and doctrinal necessity. In my view, the only way out of such a horrible situation is some plain speaking, followed by repentance. Rather that than a millstone around the neck.