The Protestant Limbo
I don't
enjoy Christian baby dedications. To me they're a little sad and a little
irritating all mixed together.
It's sad to me because to me it's like making your kids live in a tent in the
back yard until they know how to unlock the back door. You let them stay on the
property but they don't really belong. So you make sure they don't come in the
house. It's irritating to me because I don't really agree with some of the
reasons usually given against infant baptism.
I should say right off the bat that I don't think baptism saves you. I don't
think that baptism keeps a child from hell or protects them from the
consequences of original sin. In that sense, I believe it is possible for a
person to go to heaven even if they are never baptized. So in terms of the symbolic
aspect of baptism, deciding when a person is baptized is partially a question
of what you are trying to symbolize. Do you want them symbolically in from the
beginning of their lives or only when they have made the personal commitment?
But are they really out when they are 2? I believe they're really in when they're 1, 2, 3, maybe even 4, 5,
6. Indeed, I believe it's possible that a person might
be "in" at every moment of their life--if they accept Christ from the
moment they understand their need for him. I bet Russ Gunsalus and Keith Drury
have been on their way to heaven every single moment of their lives!
Accordingly, it makes me really sad when we make it a point of saying that our
children are "out." Frankly, I’d like our children to take communion
too. I guarantee you the children at
But of course I believe baptism is also a sacrament, a means of grace. In that
sense, I believe it "helps" our fellowship with God in some mystical
way. I actually believe that a child who has been baptized has a better chance
of accepting Christ personally later, not too dissimilar from the passage in 1
Corinthians 7 that says our children are sanctified by our faith apart from any act of will on their part.
If baptism is truly a means of grace in this way, then to forbid our children
from baptism is actually to refuse them an avenue of God's grace. In other
words, it sets down a "harder" path into the kingdom for them than it
could be. If we knew this to be true for certain, refusing our children baptism
would be rather infuriating to us, something we would actually fight against.
I suppose the main objection to infant baptism is the idea that you cannot be
saved without a personal confession of faith. But of course nothing I've said
thus far contradicts this idea. That's part of what's irritating to me.
Salvation is not the same thing as baptism. And there's often a subtle
individualistic assumption that goes along with this position--as if for an
experience to be meaningful I have
to be conscious of it (note to self: examine possibly self-oriented assumptions
I may not have examined).
And of course the fact that the baptisms recorded in the New Testament are all or at least nearly all adult baptisms
doesn't settle the issue. The Bible
never tells us an incident where someone is baptized as an adult who was in the
church as a child. All the adult NT baptisms are people entering the church for
the first time as an adult. And of course the NT does mention
more than once that whole households were baptized--we
just don't know who all was in them. On the whole, my sense of how group
dynamics worked in the Bible makes me suspect it more likely than not that the
early church did often baptize children.
A personal relationship with God and Christ is of course essential, meaning
that every individual must confess Christ and appropriate his death if they are
at all intellectually able (Frankly I would still baptize a severely mentally
challenged person, even if they will never really understand). But I suspect
that such relationships were always embedded in the community of faith in New
Testament times. In a sense they were personal, but not individual, relationships with God and his Christ.
And of course infant baptism isn't just some Catholic thing. Luther, Calvin,
and Wesley would all give an intense scolding to anyone using their name and
not baptizing their children. In recent times, adult baptism is really an
Anabaptist thing that resurfaced these last few hundred years, a backwater
trickle that has really only flourished in
Many will disagree with me, but I find baby dedications missed opportunities.
To me they impoverish the church by placing our children in a limbo that they
are not really in. While we could use baptism to emphasize that we are
communities and families of faith, instead we accentuate ourselves as isolated
individuals of faith. Rather than making our children have to work to leave, we
make them work to get in when they are really in already. Rather than avail
them of God's means of grace and give them any sacramental benefit to baptism,
we make them come in cold turkey.
The
The Gospels
Let’s
wander through the NT on this issue. The gospels seem a fair enough place to
start.
In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the baptism mentioned is primarily that of John the
Baptist. We would not, as Christians, consider this baptism to be Christian
baptism. Matthew 3:11 does predict that Christ will baptism with the Holy
Spirit and fire. Mark 1:8 similarly mentions a coming baptism with the Holy
Spirit.
But of most interest to us of these is Luke 3:16, which also predicts
that Christ will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. This prediction in
itself is not unique, but in the case of Luke we have Acts to give us what Luke
understands to be the "rest of the story." Of greatest interest to us
here is Acts 19:1-7, where Paul clearly does not consider baptism by John to be
Christian baptism because it did not include baptism with the Holy Spirit. Paul
insists that this group of twelve men be baptized in the name of the Lord
Jesus.
Baptism in Matthew, Mark, and Luke thus is more indirectly related to our
subject than directly. John the Baptist of course baptized Jewish individuals
who repented of their sins with a view to forgiveness and in preparation for
the coming of the Messiah. For JB this was a one time act of preparation, but
baptisms were not uncommon, repeatable things in Jewish life at this time. Miqvaoth were cleansing pools that you can find in any
number of places in the Holy Land (e.g., at Qumran,
John is a little more complicated, for John is the only gospel that says Jesus'
disciples baptized before JB was arrested (John 3:22, 26; 4:1-2). Are we to
understand these acts as Christian baptisms? Certainly not in the world of
Luke-Acts, for the Holy Spirit does not come until the Day of Pentecost. In
that sense Jesus "baptizes" no one until that day and we cannot
properly even speak of any Christians until that day. Paul agrees in his own
way: "If someone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they are not
his" (
But I think John also agrees in his own way with these ideas, for he makes it a
point to say that Jesus himself did not baptize (4:2). John also teaches that
Christ will baptize with the Holy Spirit (1:33) and symbolically presents the
beginning of such baptism after the resurrection (20:22).
So what do we learn from any of these gospels about contemporary issues
relating to baptism?
1. Mode: It seems more likely than not to me that JB immersed or dipped people
in the river water. I suppose it is possible that he poured water over their
heads. The text doesn't really say and I don't buy the argument that the word baptizo in
Greek itself proves it was immersion. This seems a kind of root fallacy that
insists the root must dictate how a word is used in practice. But words take on
a life of their own and often leave the root or etymological building from
which they came. Nevertheless, I have no problem with the usual suggestion that
JB probably immersed in the river. Again, this does not take us yet to the
question of what a Christian mode of baptism might be.
2. Infant: It seems to me very likely that all or at least nearly all of those
who came to JB were adults. They were preparing
Does this impact the discussion of Christian infant baptism? We'll have to wait
for an argument from someone that baptism must involve repentance and therefore
would not apply to an infant. For the moment, we will simply note that JB's baptism is not Christian baptism and therefore that it
is somewhat of a unique moment in salvation's history that does not directly
affect our discussion of Christian baptism.
3. Repeatable? I doubt that JB's baptism was meant to
be repeatable, although baptism in general was in Jewish culture at the time.
JB was preparing for the Messiah. That would normally have been a one time act
I think.
Paul’s Writings
I suppose
Paul's comments in 1 Corinthians on baptism are a little surprising at first.
Paul starts off in chapter 1 sounding like baptism wasn't a high priority for
him and seems to have difficulty remembering who he had actually baptized while
he was at
The way Paul says all this, and a little extra reflection, stretches my
imagination a little. For one thing, the baptism of the house of Stephanus is introduced as if it were an oversight. He
started in 1:14 with the impression that Crispus and Gaius were it. Further, it is then doubly suspicious that
the house of Stephanus shows up in chapter 16, and we
find out that Stephanus and his servants were in fact
the first converts of southern
In short, I have good reason to see Paul's de-emphasis on baptism in chapter 1
closely in relation to the situation at
Galatians 3:27 implies that all the true sons of God (which, remember,
explicitly includes women in this passage) have been baptized. Romans 6:3 also implies that baptism is the common
experience of all Christians. In a side note to Friends and Salvationists, we
have no evidence here that Paul used the word baptism only in relation to the Spirit. Indeed, Ephesians
(which may not reflect Paul's normal use of language, but that's a different
issue) speaks only of one baptism (Eph. 4:5).
And if we have to decide on the evidence whether it is more likely that a
reference to baptism without explanation would be to water or to a more
metaphorical meaning, the normal use of the word is the more likely. Hebrews
will later use the image of the washing of the body with pure water (Heb.
10:22); Acts clearly uses baptism primarily in relation to literal water (cf.
Acts 8:36); and Paul speaks of being buried with Christ (6:4)--so tempting to
see such a comment in relation to immersion in water.
I imagine that most of Paul's references to baptism in these passages relate to
adult baptism. After all, he was a church planter who 1) did not like to
minister where the gospel had already reached (cf. Rom. 15:20) and 2) saw
himself as an apostle to Gentiles rather than to Jews (cf. Gal. 2:8). It thus
makes sense that most of his baptisms were adults accepting Christ for the
first time.
As a side note, Paul never connects baptism with repentance. Indeed, repentance
is not one of Paul's dominant categories, an observation that has sparked a
good deal of discussion in terms of how Paul related to his Jewish background.
We can at this point ask how the early Christians came to baptize. For various
reasons I will leave Matthew 28:19 out of consideration at this point. I
imagine that early Christian baptism was an extension of JB's
baptism. At first I imagine that many Christians continued to baptize in
preparation for Christ's return and the restoration of the nation of
I imagine that baptism was an essential part of converting to Judaism if you
were a Gentile. I don't think it was an initiatory rite per se, but rather
essential because a Gentile would simply have massive amounts of sins to
cleanse. A Jew who accepted Christ as Messiah would want to purify him or
herself in preparation no doubt, and perhaps eventually as a sign of allegiance
and acceptance of the gospel. Whenever the early Christians came to see Jesus'
death to have atoning value (I think almost immediately), baptism in Jesus'
name would have been a completely appropriate way of appropriating that
atonement.
These are all thought experiments, attempts to fill in gaps in our knowledge of
how the early church got from Jesus to Paul. Acts is of course written much
later and, as the gospels, is written with the benefit of hindsight.
So eventually Christian baptism is connected with the death of
Christ (e.g.,
I do not find it at all surprising that Paul baptized whole households like
that of Stephanus (e.g., 1 Cor.
1:16). Would this have included children? Given the way I think Paul thinks, I believe it would have. On the other hand, given how
pragmatic Paul was, we can wonder whether he would have baptized very small
babies. I'm not sure that Paul would have been a stickler on a particular mode
of baptism, but I suspect he at least primarily immersed.
The next text you might expect me to turn to is 1 Corinthians 7:14. In this
"strange" verse, Paul encourages those married to unbelievers to stay
with them. His reasoning goes like this: the unbelieving spouse is sanctified
by the believing spouse, and this sanctifies (makes holy) the children as well.
Needless to say, this is not a verse that the typical evangelical would have
written. We usually resort to some banal comment on spiritual influence--which
seems a rather weak translation of "to sanctify."
Indeed, Paul addresses the church at
What does this imply about child baptism? I don't know whether the practical
side of baptizing an infant came into play with Paul. But if Paul considered
the children from even one Christian parent "in" and sanctified, then
how much more would he have considered children from two Christian parents in.
I truly believe that Paul would have baptized everyone in the household who was
at all willing, including children. And think it would even have been
appropriate in that world for fathers of households even to twist a few arms in
some cases.
So if Paul were here today and were to comment on this issue, I truly believe
he would be in favor of infant baptism--the children are sanctified by the
believing parent or parents. Salvation is not thereby a done deal, for
salvation depends on where you stand when God comes in judgment. And there
might just be a whole lot of time between childhood and that Day.
I don't think I should close until I have mentioned Paul's peculiar reference
to baptism for the dead in 1 Corinthians 15:29: "Then what will those are baptized
on behalf of the dead do? If the dead are not raised at all, why are they even
baptized for them?"
To be clear, Paul does not include himself among this group. He does not argue
against such individuals, but he does not argue for them either. Here are some
thoughts:
1. He is surely referring to Christians, unless this is some strange mystery
religion rite he has in mind. Baptism seems a word with a Jewish provenance.
But Jews themselves would probably not feel a need to baptize so that other
Jews would be part of the resurrection.
2. So we most likely have Gentile Christians being baptized for individuals who
died before the Christian message came. Or perhaps we have Jewish Christians
who believed baptism in Jesus' name was essential for resurrection and are
doing similar things. In either case, Paul's argument makes it clear that it is
baptism with a view to future resurrection.
3. Whoever they are, they must be some group that the audience of 1 Corinthians
would respect or that Paul thinks they might respect. Apollos
or Peter would fit that bill, but I have difficulty picturing Peter teaching
this. Wouldn't he more assume that Jewish heroes of faith would be resurrected?
Very difficult. 1 Peter 4:6 may picture Christ
preaching to the dead after his resurrection, another possible solution to the
question.
While I find the following interpretation difficult, it is where I'm at right
now. After Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, we have the teaching that
the dead in Christ will rise. But there is no clear teaching by Paul on other
dead. What about Jews before Christ? What about Gentiles who never heard of
Christ? I wonder if some segments of Gentile Christianity started baptizing
themselves for family who had never heard the gospel so that they might be part
of the resurrection.
Again, Paul does not promote such a practice. But it helps us get into the
minds of the ancient church a little, a church that existed in a world where
identity was far more a matter of the groups in which you were embedded than of
you as an individual. You can bet that if they were being baptized for the
dead, then they were having their infants baptized as well.
So some options on how we might reflect on our often hyper-individualistic
focus today: 1) a God-sanctioned development in understanding from that of the
NT world, 2) a balancing out of excess in the early church, 3) we might see it
needing some corrective, a partial by product of our own cultural factors today.
Acts
When we
mention Acts, 2:38 springs to mind: "Repent, let each of you be baptized
in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will
receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your
children and to all those far off, as many as the Lord our God should
call."
Clearly this reference targets adults (or at least
those mature enough to repent) who accept Christ and repent of their sins. They
are to be baptized and will in association receive the Holy Spirit. We have no
evidence of the laying on of hands being done to infants in the early church.
The Spirit is the boundary line for truly being in for Acts and it is connected
to water baptism in Acts. So there you have it: I've given a strong argument to
those who would argue that baptism must only be a matter of individuals who are
capable of repentance.
However, I don't think this is the end of the story. I've already suggested why
I think Paul would be in favor of child baptism if he were here today. Here's why
I don't think Acts should be used to contradict this position:
1. Acts is an idealized portrayal of the early church, not a special on the
History Channel. I want to make it clear that this does not in any way make me
think of Acts as false or untrustworthy in message. It just means that we are
getting a theological portrayal in Acts that must be balanced with other
theological portrayals, particularly that of Paul.
Think of it this way: if all we had were Luke, we would have a significantly
different sense of who Jesus was and what he did than we have when we factor
Matthew, Mark, and John into the equation. For example, we would not know that
Jesus ministered for three years or had pre-existed before he came to earth. We
would not have nearly as great a sense of the saving significance of his death
as we do if we only had Luke. Unfortunately, we don't have the second volumes
of Matthew, Mark, or John. And you can bet they would shed just as much
contrasting light on Acts as Matthew, Mark, and John do on Luke.
Paul's writings give us some hints of what these portrayals might look like.
For example, 2 Corinthians 12 lets us know that it was not just the Jews who
were after Paul in
If Galatians 2 and Acts 15 are the same event--and the most natural way of
taking "after 14 years" in Gal. 2:1 pushes in this direction--then we
have quite contrasting perspectives on the same event. Paul emphasizes that he
went to James, Peter, and John because God told him to and emphasizes his
independence from their authority. In Acts he is a delegate from
Many other "hints" in Acts could be mentioned that make it clear that
there is a good deal of artistry and theology in this presentation, as I
believe was appropriate for an ancient writer. In that sense, Acts does not
always give us the three dimensional portrait we find in Paul. Paul is so
"real time" that some accuse him of being hopelessly contradictory as
he argues in different ways for different contexts (sometimes with the very
same verses in contrasting ways!). Acts is more two-dimensional, the portrait of
a general superintendant showing how the church is
supposed to be, with everything done decently and in order. And of course it is
a very good portrait of what the church should be. I find no fault in a
beautiful portrait that is what it intends to be.
2. So we find hints that indeed many of Acts' statements are general statements
of theology that are not necessarily exhaustive in scope. So we see whole
households being baptized in Acts 16:15 and 33. I believe this would have
included children.
One question we face when we read Acts is whether all Christians will have or
should have exactly the same experiences as the Christians in Acts. For
example, can a person today receive the Holy Spirit and become a Christian if
no one is around to lay hands on him or her? I think so.
Are all experiences of the Holy Spirit going to be as dramatic as on the Day of
Pentecost? Should we see more individuals speaking in
tongues than do today when people receive the Holy Spirit? I don't think
necessarily so. Perhaps I am wrong, but I don't think that everyone will have a
huge emotional experience when they ask God to forgive them of their sins. If
you have truly surrendered yourself to God's lordship, I believe you should
claim by faith to have received the Holy Spirit and to be bound for the
kingdom. I think you should do this whether you feel any differently or not. I would of course hope that you
would feel a special sense of peace, but it sure seems like some of our
emotional wires are unfortunately crossed up for any number of reasons.
I believe we should take Acts as a general picture of conversion but not force
everyone into it as a Procrustean bed, the cookie cutter model for every single
person. I believe Acts is highlighting theology in its portrayal. It is not at
all clear to me that Peter and John were constantly being called all over the
place to lay hands on people so that they could receive the Holy Spirit. In
addition to the beautiful structure that Acts presents, we have hints
throughout the New Testament of more charismatic things going on with less of a
chain of command. Paul considered himself just as much
an authority as the "pillars" of
In short, Acts far more gives us the "rule" rather than the
exception. It is the place to find the fundamentals of the early church more
than the nuances. At least that's the way I see it.
So the household baptisms of Acts, in my opinion, give us some sense of this on
this topic. I think Luke would say something like this: "Oh, if you got
the impression from my portrayal of the standard conversion that we did not
baptize children, that was unintended because we did."
Conclusion
I do not
believe we are limited to the practices of the early church on many
issues. For example, I don’t think it is
wrong for us to build church buildings rather than meeting in homes. I do not agree with Augustine that infants
need to be baptized to account for original sin. In reading his Enchiridion, I am really left wondering if he believed a stillborn
child would go to hell, even if it were with a very light punishment for them.
I believe
1. That
salvation is a separate issue from baptism.
God will probably receive un-baptized believers and being baptized does
not ensure your future salvation.
2. That
water baptism is normative for Christians and is a sacrament that catalyzes God’s
grace to you, particularly his saving grace.
But again, the most crucial element in the equation is receiving the
Holy Spirit, and this often happens before baptism for adults. Does it happen after baptism for
infants? I am unsure but am willing to
consider that baptized infants have the Spirit long before they personally
commit.
3. That
baptism relates to the cleansing of sin and inclusion in the church. I believe in this sense that the early
church, including Paul and Acts, included children in baptism, considered them
part of the sanctified, and believed their sins forgiven. All they need do is continue in the race once
they appropriated such salvation personally.
I associate the current emphasis on credo baptism a sign of the
individualistic orientation of our culture.