*Edited October 6, 2015.*
Introduction
The birth
of a child is a wonderful gift from God.
Those who witness childbirth often describe it as a miracle. Even Scripture confesses that children are a
blessing, that they are “a gift of the LORD” and that “the fruit of the womb is
a reward” (Psalm 127:3). When we
consider that an infant first starts out as a zygote — a single cell organism
with its own unique genetic code — the birth of a human being truly is the miracle
of life. At the moment of birth, the
mother immediately gains the instinctive desire to protect her offspring, as
well as the father. Both parents possess
the unconditional and willing desire to protect their offspring at all costs —
physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
The spirit of the child for many parents tends to be taken more
seriously, or at least with more precautions.
For religious parents, the spirit of their child is the most important. The issue for Christians is whether an infant
should be baptised, and it is usually dependent on what denomination their
church belongs to. Lutherans and
Catholics typically baptise their infants whereas a non-denominational or
Baptist church refuses to practise the doctrine. Before I approach this, we first need to
identify what baptism is and why it is necessary for the Christian. Afterwards, I will discuss why the baptising
of infants is a necessary doctrine that must be practised in all churches of
all denominations.
What Is Baptism?
It is
shocking to find that there are still some Christians who don’t know what
baptism is and what the effects of baptism are.
An old friend of mine asked me, “What’s the meaning of baptism,” which
led me to this study. Baptism is
something that all Christians practise, yet there remain disputes about what it
is, what it does, why it’s necessary, and who should or should not be
baptised. The best thing to do is to go
straight to the Scriptures and draw our conclusions from the Word of God
without putting any human logic above the authority of the Scriptures.
First of
all, we are commanded to baptise in the Great Commission (Matthew
28:18-20). Jesus did not give a polite
suggestion; it was an obligatory command.
We’ll be coming back to this later.
The first time we come across baptism is with John the Baptiser. The type of baptism that John preaches was “a
baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3). So, in short, that is one thing baptism does: it cleanses us from all our sins — past,
present, and future. Likewise, St. Paul
affirmed this when he said, “Get up and be baptised, and wash away your sins”
(Acts 22:16). Baptism is also the
receiving of the Holy Spirit. The
Apostle Peter, at Pentecost, said, “Repent, and each of you be baptised in the
name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the
gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).
John the Baptiser’s baptism pointed to Christ and when He arrived, the
baptism of John was moved aside (John 1:29-34).
This is exactly why John said by the Jordan River, “After me comes He
who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop
down and untie. I have baptised you with
water, but He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit” (Mark 1:7-8). After this, Jesus was baptised, which was
vital because Jesus “fulfilled all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). So, baptism does two things so far: it cleanses us from all our sins, and we
receive the Holy Spirit through it. A
common question people ask is if baptism
is an “insurance policy” for salvation.
Scripture does not say that we are saved by baptism. It says that we are saved by the grace of God
through faith in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:8).
Our salvation is assured when the promises in baptism are claimed and
confirmed.
The last thing
baptism does is work sanctification in us.
You may have heard that word “sanctification,” but you might not know
what it means. Paul writes, “For this is
the will of God, your sanctification…
For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards
not man but God, who gives His Holy Spirit to you” (1 Thessalonians 4:3a,
7-8). In the Greek, “sanctification” is
the word ἁγιασμός (ha-gee-as-MOS),
which can also be translated as “holiness.”
Through baptism, the receiving of the Holy Spirit justifies our sins and
begins to work sanctification in us — He starts the process of making us
holy. Notice that the word before God’s
Spirit is the adjective Holy, hence
His work is making us holy through sanctification — or cleansing, hence the
imagery of washing or regeneration often used in Scripture in regards to
baptism. As soon as God marks us in the
faith in baptism, adopting us as His children (Ephesians 1:5) because of Christ
(justification), the process of becoming what God desires us to be begins
(holiness, sanctification).
As a Christian, you might be well
aware that there are other means of forgiveness and that we receive the Holy
Spirit when we first believe in Jesus, which, if you’re an adult, obviously
comes before baptism. Adults who haven’t
been baptised yet receive faith first (they repent and then turn back to God),
and then they are baptised, which marks their conversion and cleanses them of
all sin. (We’ll get to infants soon, I
promise.) In a conversation with a
friend, she asked me, “Why should I be baptised when it is not the only means
of forgiveness?” Going back to what I
said earlier, we baptise because Jesus commanded us to. I reiterate:
it was not a polite suggestion; it was an obligatory command. Therefore, baptism is a sacrament. A sacrament is “a sacred act that was
instituted by God, has a physical element combined with the Word of God, and
conveys the forgiveness of sin. Another
definition calls them rites commanded by God with His promise of grace”
(Mueller, 528). Jesus, who is God,
instituted baptism by commissioning the apostles and all Christians to baptise
all nations (“Go… baptising them”), it is combined with the Word of God (“in
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”), and it is
combined with physical elements (the water and laying of the hands of the
pastor), and it conveys the forgiveness of sins (Mark 1:4). Since it is God’s work toward us, it is
connected with the promise of grace. The
other sacraments are the Lord’s Supper and Absolution. We practise all these sacraments because God
commanded us to and they each have the above three qualities as well as being
connected with the promise of God’s grace.
All that being said, what makes
baptism effective is God’s Word. The
Word of God must be applied to the water in order for baptism to have its
effect. Although God works through human
hands, it is not human hands that make it effective, and neither is it the
water; it is the Word of God (a.k.a. the words of institution). The pastor could be an unholy hypocrite while
baptising someone, but the person being baptised still receives its blessings
because the power is through the Word of God, not the hands of the pastor. The heresy of Donatism asserts that the
effectiveness of baptism is dependent on the holiness of the minister and the
one receiving it based on their level of faith.
Nowhere in Scripture is this said or implied. The benefits of baptism are valid in the
baptism and received by faith because it is by faith that we receive the gifts
and promises of God. As we see in the
Great Commission, Jesus commanded that we baptise “in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” affirming not only the validity of the
Holy Trinity, but also what, or rather who, makes the baptism effective. Baptism is God’s work, not our own. It is not something we do for God; it is
something God does to us.
Baptism and Original Sin
As a former non-denominational
Christian, I came across many parents and Christians who aren’t parents who
want to wait until their child is old enough to understand baptism and make the
decision on their own because they believe that faith is a prerequisite for
baptism. When this happens, they are
confused with who does the action.
Instead of understanding that it is something God does to us, they think
it’s something we do for God. In a
discussion with Reverend Charles Schulz, he said, “Baptism is a passive verb;
it’s not something you do, but something that’s done to you.” These people fail to understand that we have
no ability to choose anything to give to God, because while we still live in
sin we continue to fail to do just that.
Nothing we give to God will ever be enough; that’s why it was necessary
for Jesus to save us. If we could give
things to God and do things for Him, then we would still be under the Law and
Jesus’ death would’ve been for nothing.
But we are not under Law; we are under grace (Romans 6:14). Not only that, but Jesus Himself said, “Apart from Me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). He also said, “You
did not choose Me, but I chose you…” (John 15:16). Even as we are saved and baptised, the
bondage of our will is to sin in the flesh, through the influences of the
world, and the Devil. This is what Paul
meant when he said, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my
flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry
it out. For I do not do the good I
want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no
longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me” (Romans 7:18-20). This is known as the doctrine of the bondage
of the will. Our concupiscence is to
sin, but as believers, it is no longer we who do it, but, as Paul says, the sin
that is still in us. Therefore, it is
impossible to choose God because we fail to do so when we sin every single
day. It’s the whole simul iustus et peccator concept (simultaneously saint and sinner).
At the core of Christian doctrine is
the doctrine of original sin — that all human beings are born into sin. Being born into sin calls for the necessity
of forgiveness, and since infants are unable to repent of their own volition, they
receive forgiveness through baptism.
Simultaneously claiming that we are born into original sin and that
infants are innocent is a contradicting statement. It is impossible to both be born into sin and
yet be innocent; that doesn’t make any logical sense no matter how you look at
it. Original sin judges every single one
of us as guilty, not innocent, and so we are, even at birth. Sin and the judgement it brings has no
compassion. It doesn’t care whether
you’re a cute little infant or not; it still convicts you to eternal death in
Hell. Original sin is the sin passed on
through the seed of Adam and Eve — that at birth, all have the natural
inclination to sin, which is to rebel against God. Because our natural inclination is to rebel
against God (sin) as it has been passed down through the seed of Adam, “the
wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). If
infants were not born into original sin and thus innocent, then they wouldn’t
suffer the effects of sin: disobedience,
illness, and death. And infants are
guilty of all these things.
However, there is Good News. Jesus Christ “paid the ransom for many”
(Matthew 20:28) by offering Himself as the sacrifice for all sins “once for
all” (Romans 6:10). Through baptism, we
are reborn. As St. Paul writes,
“Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as
Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too might
walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).
We die to our sins in baptism, and as we emerge from the waters we are
reborn into a new life. To Nicodemus,
Jesus said, “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You
must be born again’ ” (John 3:7).
What’s interesting is that in the original Greek, He says, “γεννηθῆναι ἂνωθεν”
(gen-ay-THAY-nie, AH-no-then), which literally translated means, “to be born
from above.” The Greek word for “again”
is a completely different word, which is πάλιν (PAH-lin). So in these true
words of Jesus, He paints a beautiful image that to be born again through
baptism is not to be born of this world, but from above — that is, from
Heaven. This is validated when He says
prior to this verse in verse six, “That which is born
of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” When we’re born into this world, we are born
in the sinful flesh. Through baptism, we
are reborn from the Spirit that comes from above.
Infant Baptism
In my conversations with people,
many Christians of various denominations believe that it is more right to wait
until the child understands what baptism is and then have them decide. I debunked this issue of “choosing”
earlier. Just as we did not choose to be
born on this earth, so we do not choose our rebirth in baptism. Mueller makes a brilliant point:
It
is noteworthy that such questions are raised in spiritual issues but would
never be entertained in other areas of life.
A responsible parent would not keep their children out of school until
they were old enough to decide whether they wanted to be educated, nor would
most allow a minor child to drop out if he did not want to go. They would not withhold medical care from a
child until she was old enough to understand the treatment (qtd. 336-337).
Some would say that this is a
farfetched comparison, but it’s really not.
It’s the same exact logic used in a similar situation. To say it’s not the same is a logical fallacy
known as equivocation, which occurs when the definition of a word changes in
the middle of a proposition or syllogism (which is exactly what occurs when
people say it’s not the same when utilising their line of logic). As children grow up, they despise school, but
parents still make them go because they know that it’s better to have an
education than it is to not have one.
Children hate going to the doctor’s, but parents still make them go
because they also know it’s better for them to be healthy and in good physical
condition, and also because it would be child neglect not to do so. Therefore, it is irresponsible and also child
neglect for a Christian parent to neglect their child’s baptism. By doing so, they are neglecting the child
from receiving forgiveness of all sins (original sin) and the receiving of the
Holy Spirit. Scripture says that “there
is no distinction: for all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:22b-23). I think it is vital to note that the word for
“fall” in this text is in the present tense and not passive aorist (past tense
passive). In many sermons and
conversations with people, I’ve heard them quote it as such, “for all have
sinned and fallen short of the glory
of God.” That’s not what it says. It’s not something that used to happen up to
a certain point. The present tense used
here in the Greek indicates that it is a continual
process. All have sinned and continue to
fall short of the glory of God; there is no distinction. Every single human being is a sinner, and it
is baptism that cleanses us from all sin.
The biggest argument against infant
baptism is the claim that infants don’t have the mental capacity to exercise
faith. Of course, an infant cannot
deduce that Jesus is Lord and Saviour like an adult can. This is why at infant baptisms, the
parent(s), sponsor(s), and church speak on behalf of the infant regarding their
faith. Also, in the Great Commission,
Jesus says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them… teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew
28:19-20a). Baptism and teaching go together!
You don’t baptise your infant and say, “Well, that’s it. I’m good.
They’re saved and I don’t need to do anything.” Wrong!
Teaching must continue with the baptism!
God chooses us first and waits for
our faithful response. The Israelites in
the Old Testament circumcised their 8-day-old infants as a sign of God choosing
the male offspring of Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 17:10-12). An 8-day-old infant is incapable of choosing
to believe in God and accept Him as his Lord and Saviour. Instead, God chooses the infants (and adults
who haven’t been baptised yet) to be included as a part of His family in
baptism just as He did in the Old Testament with circumcision as a sign of the
promise.
In Luke 18, Jesus was going to touch
the children and bless them, but the disciples, knowing that children and
infants are unable to make independent decisions, rebuked the people who were
bringing the children forward (exactly what people against infant baptism do
today). But Jesus rebukes the disciples,
saying, “Let the children come to Me, and do not hinder
them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.
Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a
child shall not enter it” (Luke 18:16-17). In the original language of the New
Testament, Greek, there are certain words that are used to denote specific age
groups. The Greek word that Jesus uses
here for “children” is βρέφος (BREH-fos),
which a more accurate translation would be “foetus, baby, or infant” (Danker,
74). If the word were truly “child,”
then the Greek word would’ve been τέκνον (TEK-nun), but it is not used here.
So, people were bringing forth their infants so Jesus might cleanse them
from sin, and when the disciples rebuked them since infants are incapable of
making independent decision, Jesus actually rebuked the disciples and demanded
that they be brought to Him so He could lay His hands on them. People retort to this by saying, “Well, Jesus
didn’t baptise infants.” Jesus didn’t
baptise adults either! Nowhere in Scripture
does it specifically account Jesus baptising anybody. He laid His hands on people for forgiveness
of sins, including infants, but He didn’t baptise anybody as far as we
know. Additionally, we have a record of
whom the apostles baptised in the book of Acts, including entire households
(16:11-15). If faith were an absolutely
necessary prerequisite to baptism and so important as people claim it to be,
then it would’ve been mentioned here, if not elsewhere, but it wasn’t. They baptised entire households, which
typically consisted of parents, children, and infants.
Jesus continued in saying that
“whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” It’s interesting that Jesus does not say that
children ought to become like adults, which goes against Western thought. Rather, He says that adults ought to become
like children. Wouldn’t you agree that
it’s because of children’s lack of independence and thus total dependence on
their parents that baptism is all the more necessary? If not, then perhaps these words from Jesus
should convince you just prior to what He said, “It
would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were
cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin”
(Luke 17:2). A millstone was one of two
large, circular stones used for grinding grain.
Here’s an image of what it would look like according to what Jesus said:
Imagine being cast into the sea with
that thing around your neck. Jesus
considers causing a child to fall away from Him a serious offence, and we do
exactly this when we refuse the baptising of an infant. He says it’s better for one to forcefully
drown than to cause a child to fall!
Obviously, Jesus took this quite seriously.
Likewise, Mueller comments, “Infants
may not be able to articulate their faith just as they are unable to verbalize
their love for their mother, but this does not mean that faith or love are
absent from them. With God’s power, it
will grow in time, but even infants can believe” (338). Since infants apparently don’t have the mental
capacity for faith, then they must not have the mental capacity for love either. Once again, to say that this is not the same
thing is the logical fallacy of equivocation.
However, we see evidence of an infant’s love for his mother when he
desires to be with her. Likewise, the
evidence of faith in an infant is God’s Word in the baptism, since faith is a
gift from God and not something we create.
Consider how you “prove” your faith.
Do you happen to be faithful and righteous all the time? Obviously not. So how can someone know for sure that you have faith? Faith comes from God, therefore it is
sustained by Him. Ephesians 2:8-9, “For
by grace you have been saved through faith.
And this is not your own doing;
it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may
boast.” Non-Christians are capable of
doing good works just like the ones that Christians do (e.g. giving to the
poor, donating to charities, etc.), but we cannot come to the conclusion that
by their actions they have faith since their belief in no God is the obvious
rejection of the gift of faith. We cannot
determine whether one has faith through physical perceptions. Indeed, there are even wolves in sheep’s
clothing who appear to have faith, but in truth do not, and it is because of
our inability to physically perceive faith that they deceive us. Since we cannot physically perceive faith in
rational adults, then we definitely cannot perceive it in infants either. If faith, and therefore baptism, were
dependent on an individual’s capability of higher thinking, then one could
erroneously argue that people with Down’s Syndrome and other serious mental
disorders and incapacities are incapable of having faith and thus being
baptised. Of course, no one truly makes
this argument, but the argument can nevertheless be made using the same line of
logic against infant baptism. Because:
since an infant can’t understand baptism, how can we trust that someone with
Down’s Syndrome or some other mental disability can? Do you see my point and the absurdity of this
thinking? Since faith is not dependent
on us somehow creating it and is therefore a gift from God, then God, who is
the Creator of the universe, is fully capable of giving a child the gift of
faith. Faith and understanding do not go
together. Do you understand how God was
able to create the entire universe out of nothing, how He is one being yet
three persons, and how He was able to humble Himself as man and save us from
all our sins? Of course you don’t. Yet by faith, He enables you to believe that
He is truly capable of all these things, and more than we can ever imagine. Where there is faith, understanding is
irrelevant.
What Now?
So what, then? What do we do now that we are baptised? In regards to children, Mueller explains:
A child who is baptized should be raised in faith, instructed in
God’s truth, and nurtured in the Christian faith throughout their lives. Parents promise to raise their children in
the faith when they are baptized. When
they faithfully fulfill this promise, they again demonstrate the truth that, in
Christ’s institution, baptism and teaching belong together” rather than being
separate (338).
The vocation of a parent is to
“bring [their children] up in the instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4),
which, as I explained earlier, goes together with the baptism as delineated in the Great Commission. Likewise, Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a
child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.
More specifically, how does baptism
apply to our daily lives as adults?
Martin Luther stressed the vitality of “daily baptism.” In his Large Catechism, he wrote that baptism
“must be done without ceasing, that we always keep urging away whatever is of
the old Adam. Then what belongs to the
new man may come forth” (LC, Part 4, 65).
This is the confession of sin on a daily basis, which is also what our
baptism begins with.
Baptism is not an excuse to live a
life of sin. In my conversations with
Christians and atheists alike, some have told me, “Since all my sins would be
forgiven and justified, why can’t I just do whatever I want and repent
later?” St. Paul addressed this in
Romans 6:1-4:
What
shall we say then? Are we to continue in
sin that grace may abound? By no
means! How can we who died to sin still
live in it? Do you not know that all of
us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism
into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory
of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
Baptism is the death of our original
sin and as we rise from the waters, we emerge into a new life in Christ. Therefore, such a lifestyle of living in sin
when baptised is unnatural and a denial of what God has done in your baptism
(in fact, Paul mentions this in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10). This is why it is vital that we daily repent
the contrition of our sins — the daily killing of the old Adam. As Luther comments:
But what is the old man? It is
what is born in human beings from Adam:
anger, hate, envy, unchastity, stinginess, laziness, arrogance — yes,
unbelief. The old man is infected with
all vices and has by nature nothing good in him [Romans 7:18]. Now, when we have come into Christ’s kingdom
[John 3:5], these things must daily decrease.
The longer we live the more we become gentle, patient, meek, and ever
turn away from unbelief, greed, hatred, envy, and arrogance (LC, Part 4,
66-67).
Conclusion
We have seen that all human beings
are born into original sin. Because of
this, there is no distinction, and the only way to be redeemed from our sins is
through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Redeemer.
It is essential that this is done as early as possible. Because of the sinful condition of the world,
it is full of many harrowing, and unexpected, surprises. Original sin causes tragedies upon infants
such as stillbirths and sudden infant death syndrome, and abrupt illnesses and
diseases and genetic defects in the womb, which such tragic cases are evidence
that infants are affected by original sin and therefore born into it, and
therefore guilty of sin, calling for the necessity of redemption through Jesus
Christ in baptism.
We can never predict what life may bring because the life we live on
this earth is tainted by sin. There is
uncertainty in this life; but there is certainty in the life to come. Because of this, the answer to the question,
“Is infant baptism necessary” is:
Absolutely. It is absolutely
necessary to baptise infants that they may receive the forgiveness of original
sin and receive the Holy Spirit. And
along with it must come the simultaneous teaching and discipline of the Lord
through the parents as they grow up, for Jesus has told us that baptism and
teaching go together in the Great Commission.
Since Jesus gave no distinction of age, but all nations — all people,
that includes infants; and also because the apostles themselves baptised entire
households. It is intellectually
dishonest to assume that baptism only applies to minds that are capable of
rational thought. If one refuses the
baptising of an infant, it is better for them to put a millstone around their
neck and be cast into the ocean, sinking to the very bottom, for that is a far
better fate than the damnation of an infant to suffer the eternal consequences
of sin in Hell.
References
Beckett,
Garrick. Interview with Reverend Charles Schulz. Personal
Interview. Ann Arbor, October 22,
2014.
Danker,
Frederick W., and Kathryn Krug. The
Concise Greek-English
Lexicon
of the New Testament.
Chicago: U of Chicago, 2009. Print.
McCain, Paul
Timothy, W.H.T. Dau, and F. Bente. Concordia:
The Lutheran
Confessions:
A Reader’s Edition of the Book of Concord. St. Louis,
MO: Concordia Pub. House, 2009.
Print.
Mueller, Steven
P., Korey Mass, Timothy Maschke, Brian M. Mosemann,
and Gregory Seltz. Called to Believe, Teach, and Confess: An
Introduction
to Doctrinal Theology. Eugene,
Or: Wipf & Stock, 2005.
Print.
