Question:
What does God’s Word teach about infant baptism versus adult believer’s baptism?
Answer:
The debate over infant verses adult baptism has gone on for centuries and I will not solve the issue in my brief answer. However, I can state that neither practice has explicit biblical support. Both sides use scriptural inferences. That is, neither side can point to a clearly stated verse which says adult believers only should be baptized, nor is there a verse which states infants of believers should always be baptized. Since neither side has explicit Bible passages to support their practice, both sides, however, do use strong implicit Bible passage to support their position. That is why there isn’t an easy solution.
In dealing with this issue, the denomination in which I was ordained has a very powerful motto that should be applied to those who are debating this, “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.” Since an individual’s position on baptism is very important, but it is not a salvation issue, (the thief on the cross was saved but not baptized) when we disagree we must treat each other with grace and not question the person’s salvation, nor should we allow it to divide our fellowship. The same rule should be applied on choosing which mode of baptism used (i.e., immersion, sprinkling or pouring).For evangelical Christians, neither side believes that baptism saves the person. Both sides agree that born-again Christians are saved by placing their faith in the completed work of Jesus Christ. For those who believe in adult baptism, the baptism of the adult follows their testimony of their trust in Christ alone. Baptism is an outward sign of what has taken place on their inside, a cleansing of their heart, a washing away of their sins. It is a public statement of their identification with Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. (Some of the verses they use to support their position are: Matt. 28:19; Acts 2:37-38; 8:12; and 18:8.)
For those who choose to believe in infant baptism they see baptism a little differently. My own experience with this is that I’ve been on both sides. I was raised as a Baptist, became a born-again believer as a Baptist and was baptized in a river on the same day. I have 7 children and my first 5 were not baptized as infants, the last 2 were. They were baptized as adults after they made a profession of faith. But between number 5 and number 6 I began a Bible study on my own to discover what Scripture says about it, not what others say about it.
In Genesis 15 God made a covenant with Abraham. (A covenant is somewhat like a contract.) This covenant was sealed with the sign of circumcision in Genesis 17. God promised to bless Abraham with offspring and land and that He would be God to him and his children. Of course, Abraham’s responsibility in the covenant was to trust and obey God. However, the sign of the covenant was that all males were to be circumcised. Male babies born to covenant parents were to be circumcised on the 8th day after their birth. Although the male babies received the sign of the covenant, in order for it to be effective they must become a covenant keeper, like Jacob, not a covenant breaker, like Esau, when they become adults. Under the new covenant, the covenant of grace, and in the early NT church, baptism replaced circumcision. The change from circumcision to water baptism is reflected in Acts 8:12 and Colossians 2:11-12. The new covenant is more inclusive in that females are now included and it is more gracious in that the shedding of blood is no longer required. Therefore, in my own study of God’s Word, I was led to ask myself the question, “If I were a Jew living in the OT times, what would I have done with my sons on the 8th day of their life as a sign of the covenant?” My answer was of course was, “I would have had them circumcised.”
The important point is not that there is only one proper mode of baptism, but rather that a baptism is a sign which involves a ceremonial cleansing and the amount of water used for that sign can vary.