The Church and the sacraments

Baptism

What God does in the water, and the full case for baptising infants.

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Baptism is not a ceremony in which you announce a decision. It is something God does to you. The Nicene Creed, which all four traditions recite, says it plainly: I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins.

What Scripture says happens in baptism: sins are washed away; we are born again of water and the Spirit; we are buried with Christ and raised with Him; we put on Christ; we are made members of one body; baptism now saves us.

That is why the Church baptises infants. If baptism is God's act rather than ours, there is nothing an adult can bring that an infant lacks. The demand that a candidate first produce a credible conversion makes the human decision the qualifying condition - and then grace is a response to something we did.

The case for infant baptism rests on four legs. The covenant: children were included in God's covenant from Abraham onwards, and circumcision was applied to infants at eight days. Colossians 2 explicitly links baptism to circumcision. Whole households are baptised repeatedly in Acts, with no hint that children were separated out. Christ's own welcome: suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not. The Church's practice: attested from the earliest records, defended by Origen as apostolic, and universal until the sixteenth century.

Baptism is unrepeatable. Valid baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit with water is recognised across the four, which is why converts between them are received without rebaptism.

It does not work magically. The grace is given; it must be lived. A baptised person who abandons the faith has not proved baptism ineffective any more than a wasted inheritance proves the bequest was never made.

What the New Testament says baptism does

The argument here is best made by simply laying out the texts, because their cumulative force is the case.

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. (Acts 2:38)
Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins. (Acts 22:16)
Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (John 3:5)
We are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead... even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)
As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. (Galatians 3:27)
By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body. (1 Corinthians 12:13)
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. (Titus 3:5)
Baptism doth also now save us... by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 3:21)

Every verb has God as its subject and the baptised as its object. Sins are washed; we are buried, raised, clothed, joined, saved. Nowhere does the New Testament describe baptism as the candidate's testimony to something that has already happened.

Pause and thinkPause: a friend says baptism is "an outward sign of an inward grace" and therefore symbolic. How would you use that phrase itself to answer him?

The case for baptising infants

This is the practical fault line between the four traditions and most of modern evangelicalism, and it is worth being able to make the case properly, in order.

One: the covenant includes children

God's covenant with Abraham explicitly includes his offspring, and its sign was applied to infants at eight days - before any possibility of faith, understanding or decision. That is not incidental; it is the shape of how God deals with families.

Paul makes the connection directly: in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands... buried with him in baptism (Colossians 2:11-12). Baptism is the new covenant's sign of belonging, standing where circumcision stood.

Now press the implication. If children were included under the old covenant and are excluded from the sign of the new, the new covenant is narrower than the old - which reverses everything the New Testament says about the new covenant being better, wider and more generous. Peter's Pentecost sermon says the opposite: the promise is unto you, and to your children (Acts 2:39).

Two: households

Five household baptisms appear in the New Testament: Cornelius (Acts 10), Lydia (Acts 16:15), the Philippian jailer (Acts 16:33), Stephanas (1 Corinthians 1:16), and Crispus (Acts 18:8). The Greek oikos means the whole household, including children and servants.

Be honest about what this proves and what it does not. It does not prove infants were present in every case - the text does not say. What it does show is that the unit of baptism is the household, which is precisely the covenantal pattern, and that nowhere does the New Testament record a child of Christian parents being baptised later on reaching an age of decision. If the apostolic practice had been to wait, some trace of a first generation growing up unbaptised should survive. There is none.

Three: Christ's own attitude

Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God (Mark 10:14). The verb translated forbid - koluo - is the very word used in the baptism accounts: what doth hinder me to be baptized? (Acts 8:36), can any man forbid water? (Acts 10:47).

Jesus explicitly says the kingdom belongs to such as these. The burden of proof falls on whoever wishes to keep them from its sign.

Four: the Church did it

Origen, writing around 240, says the Church received from the apostles the custom of giving baptism even to infants. Cyprian in 251 addresses a synod that considered whether to wait until the eighth day, by analogy with circumcision, and concluded that no one should be kept from grace - the disagreement was about whether to baptise on day two or day eight, not whether to baptise. Irenaeus around 180 speaks of Christ sanctifying infants, children, youths and the old. The Apostolic Tradition attributed to Hippolytus directs that little children be baptised first, with parents or relatives answering for those who cannot speak.

The practice was not challenged in any surviving source until the sixteenth century - a striking fact when you consider how much the early Church argued about, and how many local customs were disputed.

What baptism does not do

Two misunderstandings, one from each side.

It is not magic. The grace given in baptism must be lived, and it can be neglected, resisted and abandoned. The four traditions differ on the mechanics, but none teaches that baptism guarantees salvation regardless of the subsequent life. All of them call the baptised to repentance, faith and the Christian life. A baptised apostate has not disproved baptism.

It is not merely a start we must complete. The other error is to treat baptism as a preliminary that has to be validated later by a real conversion. If baptism is God's act, then the Christian life is lived from it, not towards it. Luther's counsel in temptation was not to seek a new experience but to remember: I am baptised.

Where the four traditions stand

Catholic

The Catechism teaches that baptism forgives original sin and all personal sins, remits all punishment due to them, confers sanctifying grace, incorporates the person into Christ and the Church, and imprints an indelible spiritual character which is why it can never be repeated. It is necessary for salvation for those to whom the gospel has been proclaimed, while the Church also recognises baptism of blood (martyrdom before baptism) and baptism of desire, and entrusts unbaptised infants who die to God's mercy - the hypothesis of limbo was never defined doctrine and the International Theological Commission set it aside in 2007. The normal form in the West is infusion, pouring water three times on the head, though immersion is permitted and increasingly used. Anyone, including a non-Christian, can baptise validly in an emergency, provided they use water and the Trinitarian formula and intend to do what the Church does - a striking provision that shows how little the sacrament depends on the minister. Confirmation is usually separated by years in the Latin rite, though Eastern Catholic churches keep the ancient unity of the three sacraments of initiation.

Orthodox

Orthodoxy baptises by triple immersion - the full submerging of the candidate, including infants - in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and regards immersion as the proper form, since the word itself means to plunge and Romans 6 speaks of burial. Baptism, chrismation and first communion are administered together, in a single service, to infants as to adults: the newly baptised child is anointed with holy chrism and immediately receives the Eucharist. There is no waiting period and no later confirmation, and Orthodox infants commune from the beginning of their lives. This unity of initiation is one of the clearest practical differences from the Latin West. Orthodoxy understands baptism as death and resurrection with Christ, the beginning of theosis, and as illumination - the ancient name for the sacrament in the East is photismos, enlightenment. On those baptised outside Orthodoxy, practice varies: some are received by chrismation alone, some by confession of faith, and some jurisdictions baptise, and the matter is not uniformly settled.

Lutheran

Lutherans teach baptismal regeneration without embarrassment. Luther's Small Catechism asks what baptism gives and answers: it works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare. Asked how water can do such great things, the answer is that it is not the water but the word of God in and with the water. The Large Catechism is blunter still, calling baptism God's work and no mere human act. Lutherans baptise infants, and answer the objection that infants cannot believe by holding that faith itself is God's gift and can be given to an infant - Luther pointed to John the Baptist leaping in the womb. Against the Anabaptists, Article 9 of the Augsburg Confession condemns those who reject the baptism of children. The daily significance of baptism is central to Lutheran piety: the old Adam is to be drowned by daily contrition and repentance, and a new man to emerge - so that baptism is not a past event but the shape of every day. Luther's counsel in temptation was to say baptizatus sum, I am baptised.

Anglican

Article 27 states that baptism is not only a sign of profession and mark of difference, but also a sign of regeneration or new birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive baptism rightly are grafted into the Church - and it concludes that the baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ. The Prayer Book's service is unambiguous: after the baptism the minister declares seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ's Church. The Catechism defines a sacrament as an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, given unto us, ordained by Christ Himself, as a means whereby we receive the same and a pledge to assure us thereof. Confirmation follows at an age of discretion, when those baptised as infants take on themselves the promises made for them. The one persistent internal tension is that some evangelical Anglicans have read the regeneration language of the Prayer Book as charitable presumption rather than statement of fact - the Gorham controversy of 1847-50 turned on exactly this and was resolved in favour of permitting both readings.

Where modern denominations differ

Who differs: This is the sharpest practical divide in the course. Baptist, Pentecostal, non-denominational, Anabaptist and most independent churches practise believer's baptism only, and most regard baptism as an ordinance that symbolises salvation rather than conveying it. They will frequently rebaptise adults who were baptised as infants, which the four traditions regard as a serious matter, since the Creed confesses one baptism.

Note carefully that Reformed, Presbyterian and Methodist churches do baptise infants. Their ground is covenantal, as above, but most deny baptismal regeneration: baptism signs and seals the covenant promise, and its efficacy is realised in the elect in God's time. So on the practice they stand with the four; on what the sacrament does, they stand apart from the Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and Prayer-Book positions. Do not lump them in with Baptists; it will cost you the argument.

What they hold: That every recorded baptism in the New Testament follows repentance and faith; that the order in the Great Commission is make disciples, then baptise; that an infant cannot repent or believe; that the New Testament's household baptisms are an argument from silence; and that baptismal regeneration amounts to salvation by ritual rather than by faith.

How to answer, in this order:

On the order of faith and baptism. Grant it for adult converts - obviously a first-generation adult believes and is then baptised, exactly as a first-generation convert to Judaism was circumcised as an adult while his sons were circumcised at eight days. The question is what happens in the second generation, and on that the New Testament records no case of a child of believers being baptised on reaching an age of decision. If the apostolic rule had been to wait, that silence is extraordinary.

On infants being unable to believe. Ask what faith is. If faith is fundamentally a decision of the understanding, infants cannot have it - and neither can the severely disabled, which should give pause. If faith is trust, an infant is the model of it, and Christ says so when He sets a child in the midst. And in every tradition, faith is God's gift rather than a human achievement, which removes the question of capacity.

On the argument from silence. Point out that it cuts both ways, and harder in the other direction. There is also no recorded instance of a believer's child being baptised later. But the silence is not the strongest point. The strongest point is the covenant: God has dealt with families, not only individuals, from Abraham onwards, and the sign was given to infants. To exclude children now is to say the new covenant is narrower than the old.

On salvation by ritual. This is where the four traditions' answer is strongest and least expected. Ask who acts in infant baptism. The infant does nothing - he cannot decide, cannot profess, cannot contribute. Everything is God's. That is the purest possible picture of grace. By contrast, a baptism that requires the candidate to first produce a credible profession has made a human act the qualifying condition. The charge of works-righteousness, pressed carefully, lands on the other side of the table.

On rebaptism. The Creed says one baptism. If a person baptised as an infant in the name of the Trinity is baptised again, the claim is that God did nothing the first time - which requires knowing that God did not act, and no one is in a position to know that.

And a closing concession worth making. Infant baptism has been abused, in Christendom and since: whole populations baptised with no intention of discipleship, godparents who never appear again, grace treated as a formality. Baptist Christians are reacting to something real. The answer to the abuse is catechesis, not withholding the sacrament.

Work with it

Check yourself

Which line of the Nicene Creed, recited by all four traditions, bears most directly on whether baptism accomplishes anything?

Check yourself

What is the covenantal argument for baptising infants?

Check yourself

Which of these groups baptises infants but generally denies baptismal regeneration?

Objection drill

Every single baptism in the New Testament follows repentance and belief. The order in the Great Commission is "make disciples... baptising them" - discipleship first. You cannot point to one infant being baptised anywhere in Scripture. You have replaced a believer's obedience with a ceremony performed on someone who cannot even understand it.

Write your answer first. You will remember it far better than one you only read.

A model answer

Let me take the strongest form of this seriously, because it is the argument that persuades most people who hold it.

On the recorded baptisms. True, and expected. The New Testament describes a first generation - a missionary situation in which adults hear the gospel and respond. Of course they believe and are then baptised. The same was true of an adult Gentile converting to Judaism: he was circumcised as an adult. But his eight-day-old son was circumcised without believing anything, and nobody thought this was a contradiction, because the covenant sign works differently for the convert and for the child of the covenant.

So the question is not what happened to first-generation adults. It is what the apostles did with the children of believers. And here the argument from silence runs strongly the other way: there is no record anywhere in the New Testament of a believer's child being baptised on reaching an age of decision. Not one. If the rule were to wait, the first generation of Christian children would have produced a notable wave of adolescent baptisms, and something would have survived.

On the Great Commission. The Greek is one imperative - make disciples - followed by two participles, baptising and teaching. Baptising and teaching are how disciples are made; they are not sequenced as prerequisites. And note that teaching comes after baptising in the sentence, which on a strict reading would be awkward for the objection's own logic.

On the covenant, which is the heart of the matter. God's dealings with Abraham include his offspring explicitly, and the sign was applied to infants before they could believe. Paul connects baptism with circumcision in Colossians 2:11-12 in as many words. Peter, preaching the very first Christian sermon, says the promise is to you and to your children. If children were inside the old covenant and are outside the new one, then the new covenant is narrower and stingier than the one it fulfils - and no New Testament writer would recognise that.

On what the historical Church did. Origen around 240 says the Church received the custom of baptising infants from the apostles. Cyprian's synod in 251 debated whether to baptise on the second day or wait until the eighth, by analogy with circumcision; nobody present suggested waiting years. Irenaeus speaks of Christ sanctifying infants. Tertullian argued for delay around 200 - and in doing so confirms that the practice was already established, since one does not argue against a custom that does not exist. There is no record of anyone objecting on principle until the sixteenth century.

On the deepest issue, which is what baptism is for. The objection assumes baptism is a believer's act of obedience, testifying to a salvation already received. If that is what it is, infant baptism is indeed absurd. But look at what the texts say happens: sins are washed away, we are born of water and the Spirit, buried and raised with Christ, clothed with Him, joined to one body, saved. In every case God is the actor and the baptised is the recipient.

And now the question turns around. If baptism is God's act, what exactly does an adult bring that an infant lacks? The adult can articulate a decision. But if that decision is the qualifying condition, then grace has become a response to something we produced - and the infant, who brings nothing and can contribute nothing, is actually the clearest picture of the gospel there is.

One concession, and it is real. Infant baptism has been badly abused. Whole populations were baptised with no intention of discipleship; godparents vanish; families treat it as a naming ceremony with a nice photograph. Baptist Christians are reacting against something that genuinely happened and still happens. The remedy for that is serious catechesis and pastoral honesty, not withholding what God gives.

Memory work

Turn each card over, then say honestly whether you knew it. Cards you miss come back sooner.

I have worked through this section