A Scriptural Critique of Infant Baptism

Selected Scriptures

A couple of weeks ago I gave a message on the issue of baptism and when I introduced that I was going to do that I said that I wanted to give a follow up message on the issue of infant baptism and I'm going to do that this morning.

Now I confess that this may seem more like a theological class lecture.  You may feel like you've just enrolled at the Master Seminary.  That's okay, and I warn you in the back rows there who maybe tend to wander anyway because you're so far away, hang in there.  This is really a provocative and important and far-reaching issue to deal with.

Let me explain for some of you that might not understand.  There is a wide-spread belief in the church that babies are to be baptized and so soon after their birth they are taken to the church, whether it's a Roman Catholic Church, or whether it's a Presbyterian Church, or whether it's a Reformed Church or a Lutheran Church, an Anglican Church, Episcopalian Church, they are taken to the church and they are sprinkled with water on the head, a little bit of water is dripped on their head and that constitutes their Christian baptism.  This is very widespread; this is all over the world, in fact.  This is the influence of the post-reformation European church, and it has spread wherever that influence has gone.

Now the result of this is that you have baptized non-Christians all over the world.  They were baptized, as infants, with what they believed was a Christian baptism and an initiation into the church, and an initiation into salvation.  And yet they are not Christians.  They have not come to personal confession of faith in Christ and so they are baptized, but they are non-Christians.  On the other hand you have the same group of people who are actually not baptized at all because that baptism is not New Testament baptism.  So they are baptized non-Christians who have really never been baptized at all, in the true sense. 

It is also true that many people are, particularly in that movement, many people do come to true faith in Christ.  They may start by being baptized as an infant in Presbyterian, or Lutheran, or Reformed Church, or Anglican or Episcopalian Church or whatever church it is that does infant baptism, they are baptized as a child, they do come to true faith in Jesus Christ but are never baptized by immersion because the church teaches that that is not appropriate. 

In fact, after the reformation if somebody was re-baptized who was baptized as an infant, they were labeled an Anabaptist and persecuted.  It was not uncommon for that persecution to reach a fever pitch, so that after the Reformation you had protestant people who believed in infant baptism persecuting people who believed in believer's baptism.  It became a serious issue, even to the point where some people who believed in adult immersion after confession of faith in Christ and were re-baptized were killed.

So this was a heated issue.  We can be glad it isn't quite that furious today, but it is still an issue of immense importance in the church, because, as I said, you have baptized non-Christians and unbaptized Christians and in both cases you have a problem, a serious problem.  We have certain the present largest unbaptized population of professing Christians ever, and that unbaptized population would be made up of people who were baptized as infants and don't feel they need to be baptized; therefore, they are really unbaptized in the true way, and all those other people who are hearing the gospel today through television, and radio, and in the sort of seeker friendly churches where baptism is not practiced.  So you have this massive population of unbaptized professing Christians everywhere.

Now few things in the New Testament are more unmistakable than the issue of baptism.  It's just plain and simple.  Jesus said, "Go and preach the gospel, and baptize."  And Peter said, "Repent and be baptized."  It couldn't be much more clearly expressed than that.  Even so we have wide spread non-compliance to this issue.

Now this is of great importance to me because I feel as a Christian preacher, as a Christian pastor, as a shepherd of God's flock, as somebody whose responsible to the Lord for ministry I need to preserve what is precious to the Lord, right, in the church.  Now there are only two ordinances the Lord gave us, just two.  He gave us baptism and the Lord's Table, and He said, "Just do these two things."  They are symbols.  Baptism, as we know, is a symbol depicting the death of an individual in Christ, burial, and resurrection and newness of life.  The Lord's Table is the symbol of the cross both the body of Jesus Christ symbolizing the bread, symbolizing the cup, and we are enjoined to carry those out in the church. 

This is important to me because it's part of the stewardship of responsibility that I have to discharge before the Lord.  It grieves me that some churches, like the Quaker's Church and the Friend's Church that will not practice communion.  It also grieves me that there are many, many churches, many of them, thousands upon thousands of them, tens of thousands of them all over the world that will not properly practice Christian baptism in spite of what the New Testament says.  This is a matter of obedience.  This is a matter of honor to the Lord.  And it's of great importance to me.

Some years ago I was invited to be the President of a great educational institution here in our country, and as I contemplating whether I wanted to leave the pastorate here at Grace Church some years ago and go do this, the thing that stuck in my mind most was if I was there I wouldn't be able to discharge my calling from the Lord to lead the church, and it struck me and I said this to the people at the time, I can't do this because I need to lead the people of God in the ordinances that the Lord has commanded us because I believe He's given me to the church and how am I going to baptize people and how am I going to lead them to the Lord's Table in that environment?  This has always been very important to me because the Lord didn't give us that much that we would get confused about it and He wants us to carry the responsibility out. 

Baptism is critically important, and I went into that two weeks ago.  Baptism is critically important.  It is to be understood and it is to be practiced.  Standing in the way of that understanding is a huge barrier and that huge barrier is infant baptism.  As I said, most of the mass of evangelized TV/radio converts are left to them selves and maybe never even hear about baptism.  They don't have any accountability for baptism, they are not under any church authority, but in addition to them you have this huge crowd of millions of people who believe in infant baptism.  And that too confuses the issue greatly and acts as a barrier to a true understanding of baptism and to obedience to that understanding.  It's not a minor matter.  It has never been a minor matter, as I said, during the time of the Reformation people were called heretics if they were baptized in a New Testament way by those who were infant baptizers.  They were persecuted and, as I said, sometimes executed.

Now as years have gone on we've gotten kind of comfortable and just sort of said well they believe in infant baptism and we don't and they're our brothers and sisters and that's true.  And it's certainly not a reason to call them non-Christians, and it's certainly not right to call them heretics, and it's certainly not appropriate to not have fellowship with them, but it is right to truly understand what Scripture says, so they can come into compliance with the word of God.  Time has come after all these years since the Reformation to strip off these remnants of Catholicism that never got dealt with during the Reformation and have been perpetuated and return to the simple New Testament design.  And I want to address that with you this morning.

Now there are five reasons why I reject infant baptism, five reasons and I'm telling you, folks, I can't get all that I want to say out this morning so you're only going to get I hope the best of what's here, but these are very important points.  Point number one, and this ought to end the argument.  Infant baptism is not in Scripture.  Infant baptism is not in Scripture.  And against that statement there is no evidence, there is no refuting of that statement.  Scripture, nowhere, advocates infant baptism.  It nowhere mentions infant baptism.  It doesn't exist in the Bible.  There is no example of it, there is no comment on it; it's not there. 

It is therefore, impossible to prove that infant baptism is valid from the New Testament.  It's impossible to support it from the New Testament or for that matter from the Old Testament.  German theologian, Schumacher wrote, "All traces of infant baptism, which have been asserted to be found in the New Testament must first be inserted there."  He's right.  The host of German and front ranked theologues and scholars of the church of England, the Church of England, the Anglican Church, which believes in infant baptism, a host of their scholars have united to affirm, not only the absence of infant baptism from the New Testament, but from apostolic and post apostolic times.  It isn't in the New Testament and it didn't exist in the earliest church.  They believe it arose around the second or third century.  Lutheran professor, Curt Allen, after intensive study of infant baptism says, "There is no definite proof of the practice until after the third century," and he says, "This cannot be contested."

Catholic professor of theology, Haggenmacher, writes, "This controversy has shown that it is not possible to bring in absolute proof of infant baptism by basing one's argument on the Bible."  Good!  B. B. Warfield, who is no mean theologian, who was astute and really a great, great theologian who influenced my life in my seminary days, B. B. Warfield affirmed, he was by the way an advocate of infant baptism, but he affirmed the absence of infant baptism from the Bible. 

Among the Calvinists, among the reformed people there is a very important principle, which many of them like to use.  It's called the regulative principle, and it says this:  if Scripture doesn't command it, it is forbidden.  Now if they would just stick with that they'd be all right.  The Scripture doesn't demand it; it cannot be introduced into the church as normative.  The theme of the Reformation, of course Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Sola Christus, that is faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone, also Sola Scriptura, Scripture alone.  The theme, the great by-word of the Reformation was Scripture only, Scripture only, Scripture, Scripture, Scripture, and yet if you go to Scripture you can't find one single solitary word about infant baptism.  It's not in the Bible.  It still is defended, however, amazingly and still practiced as if was biblical.  It's really amazing.  I can understand how people within the protestant church can disagree about an interpretation of Scripture. 

I really find it very hard for myself to understand how they can argue about something that isn't in the Bible, as over against what is.  It's one thing to say, "Well I understand that passage this way, and you understand it that way, or I understand this doctrine and you understand it that way."  It's another thing to say, "I believe what's in the Bible and I don't believe what's outside the Bible."  That's a completely different issue, but that in fact is what we have.

Now I would expect Roman Catholicism to engage in that practice because Roman Catholicism has two sources of authority.  On the one hand they have the Bible, on the other hand and it's as empty as my right hand, they have tradition.  You see where the weight is.  But in the Catholic system there is what is called tradition.  It is known as perdition or the magisterium and it is the accumulation of materials outside the Bible that bear equal authority with the Scripture. 

Now we're not surprised that the Roman Catholic system because they believed that the Catholic Church is the unique recipient of post biblical revelation, that is to say God has given His word to the church beyond the Bible.  And therefore, it carries equal weight with Scripture.  We're not surprised that a system that believes there is extra biblical material that has equal weight with Scripture would come up with infant baptism and make it an absolute in their system.  Not surprising!  In fact, the Roman Catholic asserts that it is the only recipient of revelation beyond the Bible.  Not only is it the only recipient of revelation, but it is the only and infallible interpreter of all revelatio