Devotional #74

Question 74. Are infants also to be baptized?

Answer: Yes: for since they, as well as the adult, are included in the covenant and church of God (a); and since redemption from sin (b) by the blood of Christ, and the Holy Spirit, the author of faith, is promised to them no less than to the adult (c); they must therefore by baptism, as a sign of the covenant, be also admitted into the Christian church; and be distinguished from the children of unbelievers (d) as was done in the Old Covenant by circumcision (e), instead of which baptism is instituted (f) in the New Covenant.

(a) Genesis 17:7: And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

(b) Matthew 19:14: But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”

(c) Luke 1:15: For he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.
Psalm 22:10: On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
Isaiah 44:1-3: “But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen! Thus says the LORD who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you: Fear not, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen. For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.
Acts 2:39: For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”

(d) Acts 10:47: “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”

(e) Genesis 17:14: Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

(f) Colossians 2:11-13: In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.

For your personal reflection:
Tragically, many Protestant churches have made baptism a work.  They have confused the sign and the thing signified by making baptism the fruit of their choice rather than a sign of Christ’s unearned and undeserved grace.  The entire biblical witness is that children of the covenant people – whether the Old Covenant or the New Covenant – were always included in the covenant community.  Michael Green, in his wonderful little book entitled Baptism, writes that infant baptism stresses the initiative of God and the work of Christ in salvation.

Are children of Christians born again/regenerate by fact of their birth or baptism?
What does baptism mean for an infant?