So because I had come to see that baptism was something that God does for us, not something that we do for him; because I had come to see that Gods church existed in the Old Testament as well and that the covenant applies across both Old and New Testaments; because children were included in the covenant church of the Old Testament and there is no indication, indeed the opposite, that they were excluded in the covenant church of the New; then I came to be a believer in believers covenant baptism.
I have been asked to explain about why I believe what I believe about baptism. Rather than give a theological explanation or a detailed examination of all the Scriptures concerned with baptism (there are plenty books and articles that do that from different perspectives) I thought I would just simply give a personal testimony about my journey on this issue. I find that people often get very wound up and angry about this and regard it as some kind of gospel faithfulness issue. I offer these thoughts not to annoy or provoke people, but simply to try and encourage understanding. The issue is not as black and white as is often supposed.
I was not baptized as a child. I grew up in a third generation Brethren home and the Brethren do not believe in infant baptism (however it is of some historical interest that my grandfather, one of the original Darbyite brethren, although he did not baptize his eleven children, was not rebaptised as an adult himself – he regarded his infant baptism as being sufficient). Even before I became a Christian I knew that infant baptism was unbiblical and a cause of much of the woes in the church, leading to a nominal Christianity. I believed that baptism was a sign of repentance and faith and that you should not have the sign until you had the thing signified. I also knew that baptism could only be by immersion. So it was, that as a 17 year old I was baptized upon my profession of faith in Morningside Baptist Church,Edinburgh on December the 9th 1979. It was a memorable and joyous occasion.
Believe and be Baptised
To me it was blatantly obvious. You believed and then you were baptized. (Mark 16:16). Baptism was a testimony to my Christian faith. I knew that there were Christians like John Stott, John Calvin and Augustine who accepted infant baptism but that was just a relic from the past and they were just not quite ‘reformed’ enough. We were the purest form of New Testament Christianity. I was 100% certain.
And then the doubts began to creep in. I was teaching in the Baptist Sunday School and I noticed that there was a difference between children of believers and children of non-believers. I began to see that the children of believers who were growing up in the Church were not outside the church, they were part of it. But how could that be since they had not received the sign of belonging to the church, baptism? I remember reading 1 Corinthians 14 For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. That verse caused me a lot of thoughts! Children of believers are not little pagans who need to be converted ASAP. They are holy. Set apart for God. But I thought – how can this be if God has no grandchildren?
A couple of years later because I came to believe in the Sovereignty of God I clashed with the then minister and he advised me to go to the Free Church – so I did! (I realize of course that there are many Baptist churches who hold to a Reformed theology – its just mine was not one of them). When I became a member in Buccleuch Free Church in Edinburgh I had the nerve to tell the minister that I did not believe all this infant baptism rubbish. He was very gracious. He laughed and told me that in the Free Church you didn’t have to accept infant baptism because we were governed by elders not popular vote and he said I was welcome to become a member but I would never become an office bearer. It was my turn to laugh – that was the last thing on my mind. So how did I end up as a Free Church minister by the time I was 24? Did I just cross my fingers when I took the vows and remained a closet Baptist, infiltrating the Free Church? No – within a couple of years I had moved from being a an Adult Baptist Only with slight doubts through the stage of being an ABO with lots of doubts, to becoming a Covenant Baptist with lots of doubts, to becoming one with slight doubts.
Step one was to consider the place of children in the Church. That was increased when I read a little booklet by Willie Still entitled ‘Bringing up Children in Faith and not Fear”. He argued that we should bring our children in the faith that they will become Christians rather than the fear that they won’t.
Step two was when I began to question what baptism actually is. My assumed position was that it was an act of obedience to Christ, a witness to Christ and something that demonstrated our devotion to Christ. This was deeply ingrained. I remember Douglas MacMillan, whilst a minister in Aberdeen, telling us about receiving a phone call from a student who wanted to be re-baptised because she did not consider her infant baptism sufficient. She had been at a friend’s baptism in a local Baptist church and it had been a great and joyous occasion, as these things often are. Douglas agreed and said he would be round straightaway with a couple of the elders, if she would just run the bath in preparation. Oh, no, that wasn’t what she wanted! She wanted the whole works – the big ceremony, the public blessing and so on.
Although most Baptist churches claim that they do baptism just as described in the Bible, they don’t. Baptism was done instantaneously in the NT church. It was the altar call. People after Pentecost were not told to hang around for a few weeks until they had done a Baptismal class! The Ethiopian Eunuch heard the gospel preached by Philip and when he saw some water asked, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” (Acts 8:37). Philip didn’t say, wait until we get to Jerusalem, take a baptismal class and let’s ensure there are plenty people to see you bearing witness to Jesus! No, he stopped the chariot and baptized him immediately! When you think about it – in todays terms it was a missed opportunity for ‘witness’.
That is because baptism is what God does for us. The believer’s baptism narrative is primarily about what wedo. But is that what the sacraments are? We do not treat communion like that. So why baptism?
94 Q: What is Baptism?
A: Baptism is a sacrament, wherein the washing with water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, doth signify and seal our ingrafting into Christ, and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace, and our engagement to be the Lord’s.
This understanding completely changed my thinking. Baptism is primarily something that God does for us, not something we do for him. It is primarily his witness to his covenant and only secondarily our witness to our faith. It is his engagement ring to us – before it is our declaration of love to him.
Step three was then to ask – if baptism is a sign of Gods covenant, to whom should it be applied? The catechism gives this answer:
95 Q: To whom is baptism to be administered?
A: Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church, till they profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him; but the infants of such as are members of the visible church, are to be baptised.
Now the Shorter Catechism is not the Bible and it could be wrong. The Bible is our supreme authority and the Creeds, Confessions and Catechisms of the church are secondary authorities that tell us how the church through the ages has understood the bible. So the key question? Is the statement that infants of such as are members of the visible church, are to be baptised, biblical?
Col. 2: 11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
Here it is clear that Paul links circumcision to baptism. Just as the Passover turns into the Lord’s Supper, and the Jewish Sabbath into the Christian Lord’s Day, so baptism is the replacement for circumcision. Both baptism and circumcision are signs that signify our entering into the Church of Jesus Christ. Both are outward signs of spiritual realities. Circumcision tells us that we need to be circumcised in heart, baptism that we need to be baptised by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ. Baptism with water points to the one who baptises with the Holy Spirit (John 1:33). We are all baptized by one Spirit to form one body (1 Corinthians 12:13).
Just before I got married I was taking part in a mission in the Highland village of Strathpeffer. Several of us squeezed into one large bedroom and we slept in sleeping bags on the floor. One night we were talking into the wee small hours and I fell asleep. When I came down to breakfast the next morning, everyone started laughing and clapping. Apparently I had sat bolt up right in my sleep and shouted out ‘its all in the covenant, boys, it’s all in the covenant”! Indeed it is. I don’t believe in infant baptism, I believe in covenant baptism. The bottom line is that it is all in Gods covenant. The sacraments are covenant signs.
Which then leads me to ask the question – who was included in the covenant church? In the Old Testament Abraham believed and was circumcised, but then his children were circumcised before they believed. On the day of Pentecost Peter told his fellow Jews “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off – for all whom the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:38-39).
A fellow Free Church minister told me of receiving a phone call in the early hours of the morning from a Muslim man. He excitedly exclaimed, “I’ve become a Christian! Now there are two things I want. A bacon sandwich and my family to be baptized!”. For him it was inconceivable that he would be baptized and not his household. As for me and my house we will serve the Lord. In our modern individualistic Western mindset that is sometimes hard for us to grasp. But for the people in Jesus’s day it would have been natural. That is why the majority of recorded baptisms in the New Testament are household baptisms. It stretches credulity to think that these households did not include children.
So because I had come to see that baptism was something that God does for us, not something that we do for him; because I had come to see that Gods church existed in the Old Testament as well and that the covenant applies across both Old and New Testaments; because children were included in the covenant church of the Old Testament and there is no indication, indeed the opposite, that they were excluded in the covenant church of the New; then I came to be a believer in believers covenant baptism. And my children were baptized. I also look forward to baptising our first grandchild in the New Year –
David Robertson is a minister in the Free Church of Scotland and serves the pastor of St Peter’s Free Church in Dundee and as director of Solas the Centre for Public Christianity. This article appeared on his blog and is used with permission.
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