On Baptism
I’m rather hesitant writing this, being that it’s bringing up controversy where there really need not be any. However, someone on a forum I visit made another comment about child baptism being a bad “Catholic doctrine” and something has snapped. So, let’s talk baptism.
On the one hand, it’s a very simple argument: Baptists say that true baptism can only be performed on adults who have made a profession of faith, that baptism by immersion is the only true baptism, and that baptism is fundamentally about being buried and rising again with Christ. Meanwhile, presbyterians disagree, with John Calvin summarising those who disagree with the baptism of children as “furious madmen [who] cease not to assail this holy ordinance of God”. Evidently then one side must be correct and the other wrong. Or is it? In his Systematic theology, Wayne Grudem mentions the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA), which allows ordination of pastors holding to both stances. Interestingly, where in 1994 Dr Grudem saw this as a good thing, in the 2007 reprinting he seems to have watered down his view, stating now that the two hold incompatibilities. Grudem’s argument goes that pedobaptists cannot accept the non-baptising of a child without believing they are directly disobeying God, whilst those holding to so-called believer’s baptism cannot rightly allow somebody to be a member without being rebaptised. The fact that most pedobaptists would in fact not have this problem, being accepting of both forms of baptism so long as nobody is baptised twice, is something which has evidently missed his attention.
Grudem does, however, still hold that the issue of baptism need not be one which divides the church, a point which most would agree with. The fact that many do not, and the fact that the majority who do so appear to be those who are thouroughly against the baptism of infants, should surely be one of a lack of understanding.
According to Simmons, “Infant baptism is left without any authority or ground in the Scripture. Faith
as a prerequisite of baptism is indicated, implied, or demanded by every
passage of Scripture that touches the question.” Why is this faith so important? Because
If the faith demanded as a prerequisite of baptism is saving faith, then only
saved people are to be baptized. That this faith is saving faith is made
evident by the fact that salvation is conditioned on faith and the believer is
said to possess eternal life. See Acts 16:31Acts 16:31
English: Good News Bible (UK) - GNB-UK
31 They answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved — you and your family.”
WP-Bible plugin; Eph. 2:8-10Eph. 2:8-10
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8-9 For it is by God's grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God's gift, so that no one can boast about it. 10 God has made us what we are, and in our union with Christ Jesus he has created us for a life of good deeds, which he has already prepared for us to do.
WP-Bible plugin; John 5:24John 5:24
English: Good News Bible (UK) - GNB-UK
24 “I am telling you the truth: those who hear my words and believe in him who sent me have eternal life. They will not be judged, but have already passed from death to life.
WP-Bible plugin. We are
not to baptize people in order to save them, nor because they want to be
saved, but only because they are already saved.
In other words, faith is a requirement of baptism for the reason that faith is a requirement of salvation and only those who are saved must be baptised. Simmons further qualifies this when he later comments on the position taken as to the symbolism of baptism, and in doing so argues that baptism must be by full immersion;
The Scripture alludes to baptism as a burial (Rom. 5:4Rom. 5:4
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4 endurance brings God's approval, and his approval creates hope.
WP-Bible plugin; Col. 2:12Col. 2:12
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12 For when you were baptized, you were buried with Christ, and in baptism you were also raised with Christ through your faith in the active power of God, who raised him from death. :
WP-Bible plugin). A burial
requires Immersion. The objection that these passages do not allude to water
baptism, but to Spirit baptism or to conversion in a figurative sense, is
groundless, and gives clear evidence of having been born of prejudice rather
than of a fair and impartial consideration of the passages.
However, it should be understood that this is not the symbolism that baptism is supposed to entail. In summarising this point of view, Berkhoff makes the following observation;
They base their opinion on Mark 10:38,39Mark 10:38,39
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38 Jesus said to them, “You don't know what you are asking for. Can you drink the cup of suffering that I must drink? Can you be baptized in the way I must be baptized?” : 39 “We can,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink the cup I must drink and be baptized in the way I must be baptized.
WP-Bible plugin; Luke 12:50Luke 12:50
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50 I have a baptism to receive, and how distressed I am until it is over! :
WP-Bible plugin; Rom. 6:3,4Rom. 6:3,4
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3 For surely you know that when we were baptized into union with Christ Jesus, we were baptized into union with his death. 4 By our baptism, then, we were buried with him and shared his death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from death by the glorious power of the Father, so also we might live a new life. :
WP-Bible plugin; Col. 2:12Col. 2:12
English: Good News Bible (UK) - GNB-UK
12 For when you were baptized, you were buried with Christ, and in baptism you were also raised with Christ through your faith in the active power of God, who raised him from death. :
WP-Bible plugin. But the first two passages merely express the idea that Christ would be overwhelmed by His coming sufferings, and do not speak of the sacrament of baptism at all. The last two are the only ones that really have any bearing on the matter, and even these are not to the point, for they do not speak directly of any baptism with water at all, but of the spiritual baptism thereby represented. They represent regeneration under the figure of a dying and a rising again. It is certainly perfectly obvious that they do not make mention of baptism as an emblem of Christ’s death and resurrection. If baptism were represented here at all as an emblem, it would be as an emblem of the believer’s dying and rising again. And since this is only a figurative way of representing his regeneration, it would make baptism a figure of a figure.
So what is the important symbolism of baptism? According to the Heidelberg Confession, “Christ has appointed the outward washing with water and added the promise that I am washed with His blood and Spirit from the pollution of my soul, that is, from all my sins, as certainly as I am washed outwardly with water, by which the filthiness of the body is commonly washed away.” In the baptism of John, and in ceremonies of washing in the Old Testament, we see that purification is the most important issue (Ps. 51:7Ps. 51:7
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7 Remove my sin, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
WP-Bible plugin; Ezek. 36:25Ezek. 36:25
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25 I will sprinkle clean water on you and make you clean from all your idols and everything else that has defiled you.
WP-Bible plugin; John 3:25,26John 3:25,26
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25 Some of John's disciples began arguing with a Jew a Jew; some manuscripts have some Jews. about the matter of ritual washing.
26 So they went to John and said, “Teacher, you remember the man who was with you on the east side of the Jordan, the one you spoke about? Well, he is baptizing now, and everyone is going to him!”
WP-Bible plugin), and so we can rightfully assume that had Christ meant the baptism he gives to be of a different meaning, he would have stated as much. In fact we may go so far as to say that the rituals of purification under the Old Covenant may have been set as an example pointing to the one true baptism that comes from Christ, through His spirit. Further, as both Calvin and Berkhoff emphasise, the act of immersion is neither set up as important nor anywhere definitely qualified as happening within the scriptures. The actual means of baptism, whether by sprinkling or by immersion, is not an issue which holds any importance: both are valid. The qualities of water as a substance which provides cleaning are the issue.
On the issue of who should administer baptism, to the best of my knowledge it is agreed by most Christian denominations that baptism should be administered only by those who are authorised by the church to do so, in the same way that Christ gave the command to baptise not to the entire church but specifically to the apostles. Calvin further argues that while baptism performed by a Roman Catholic priest should be considered valid, baptism performed by a layperson or, more controversially, a woman should not be accepted under any circumstances.
Finally onto the issue of the baptism of infants from a reformed point of view. I apologise for the long and winding detours taken in getting to this point. Baptism is, in essence, a sign of cleansing and a mark of a spiritual covenant between God and His people. An extension of the covenant with Abraham, in the same way that Abraham’s covenant extended to the children of the covenant people so also does the covenant of grace extend to the children of believers. The sacrament of baptism is a symbol of the sealing of that covenant, an analogy to the circumcision of the old testament. In the same way that in the Old Testament both the children of members of the nation of Israel, and persons who as adults wished to become a part of the nation of Israel alike would be circumcised as a sign of the covenant, and where expected to follow God’s laws, so under the new covenant we baptise both new believers and the children of believers, understanding that if they fail to keep to what God asks of them, that is they must exhibit saving faith, then they are covenant-breakers and have no place in the Church of God. The alternative, to deny our children baptism is to treat them as unbelievers, thus denying them the rights of fellowship in the church.
A common argument against child baptism is that there is no explicit example of infant baptism in the New Testament, which Berkoff addresses thusly;
The absence of all definite references to infant baptism finds its explanation, at least to a large extent, in the fact that Scripture gives us a historical record of the missionary work of the apostles, but no such record of the work that was carried on in the organized churches. And here, too, the tables may be easily turned on the Baptist. Will he show us an example of the baptism of an adult who had been born and reared in a Christian home? There is no danger that he ever will.
Finally, in addressing the issue that, according to those who would deny baptism to infants, faith is a requirement of baptism and an infant cannot express active faith, Berkoff argues thusly;
But in that way these words might also be construed into an argument against infant salvation, since they not only imply but explicitly state that faith (active faith) is the condition for salvation. To be consistent the Baptist would thus find himself burdened with the following syllogism: Faith is the conditio sine qua non of salvation. Children cannot yet exercise faith. Therefore children cannot be saved. But this is a conclusion from which the Baptist himself would shrink back.
If this is so, then how can an argument against child baptism really be considered to be so definite?
While there is much more I could comment on, such as the deeper meaning of baptism and its exact significance, I have a police against using so many words that the reader gets bored and stops reading. Maybe I’ll make a later post discussing it. Maybe I won’t. What I hope I have achieved, however, is showing that the arguments against the baptism of infants are not neccesarily arguments which can be defined as biblical any more than the arguments for, and indeed the definition of baptism held by the baptists is arguably somewhat at fault in its interpretation. Even if I have not convinced you that agreement infant baptism is the only biblical option, I do hope that there is now a point that it can be seen that it is not so dividing as to cause a need for insult-hurling: indeed the two interpretations of the meaning of baptism are so different as to not require mutual-exclusivity at all, where it not attempted to be enforced by persons such as Grudem.
I’ve included a list of references used in this post below, allowing the reader to check up on further reading themself on the issues discussed.
Incidently, if anyone would be interested in making a guest post giving further discussionf rom a different point of view, do let me know 
-Stephen Whitehead
1 January 2010
References
Louis Berkhoff, Summary of Christian Doctrine, chapter 26: Christian Baptism
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion tr Henry Beveridge, chapter 16:PAEDOBAPTISM. ITS ACCORDANCE WITH THE INSTITUTION OF CHRIST, AND THE NATURE OF THE SIGN.
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, Chapter 49
Thomas Simmons, Systematic Study of Bible Doctrine