INFANT BAPTISM IN BIBLICAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT

INFANT BAPTISM IN BIBLICAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT

George Allen Turner, Ph. D.
(Professor English Bible, Asbury Theological Seminary)

I. INTRODUCTION

Adoniram Judson, pioneer American missionary to India and Burma, was on the high seas in 1812, engrossed, during the voyage of 114 days, in the study of the New Testament. To his consternation this Congregational missionary recruit could find in the New Testament no precedent for the practice of infant baptism. He shared his misgivings with his bride Ann and she reacted with fear of the consequences of being cut off from their supporters in New England and stranded in a remote heathen land. But Ann Hasseltine Judson was no coward. With her husband she also studied the New Testament with the same result. They became Baptists during their long sea voyage and hence could no longer receive support from their sponsors, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Meanwhile, Judson's colleague, Luther Rice, on a different ship but bound for the same destination, was studying the New Testament. Upon reunion with Judson in Calcutta he confided his misgivings about infant baptism and to his surprise learned that the Judsons had come to the same conclusion.(1) The purpose of this study is to reexamine the evidence, biblical, historical, and theological and to determine, if possible, the significance of infant baptism for evangelicals in the Wesleyan tradition.

Infant baptism cannot be proved or disproved by the evidence from the New Testament. Since churches of the New Testament were mission churches and consisted only of newly converted adults, it is argued, they are not representative of later churches with second-generation members. For this reason repentance and faith by these adults were the conditions of baptism (Acts 2:38, 8:13, 36-38; 10:43,47), and nothing was said of the reception of infants into the church by baptism. It is considered sufficient that the New Testament does not forbid the baptism of infants.

II. PRE-CHRISTIAN BAPTISM

Sacral baths were (and are) common in the Middle East from the Nile to the Ganges. The implication is that water cleanses, especially if a river or sea. The Nile, the Jordan, the Euphrates, and the Ganges were regarded as sacred rivers par excellence. A person drowned in the Nile was regarded as "holy" and the corpse treated accordingly.(2)

The closest known parallel to the baptism of John is the baptism of proselytes, but here the sources are relatively late . There is no mention of proselyte baptism in the Old Testament. Mention of it occurs in rabbinic texts of about 90 A.D. in connection with arguments between the schools of Shammai and Hillel, contemporaries of Jesus. Both Philo (c. 30 A.D.) and Josephus (c. 90 A.D.) are silent on the subject. Proselyte baptism is mentioned in the Sybilline Oracles c[v, 162-70), dated about 80 A .D., and by Epictitus (c. 94 A.D.).(3)

Evidence that has been cited to attest the practice of proselyte baptism in pre -Christian times includes references to "purifications" in connection with "daughters of Gentiles."(4) Paul's allusion to baptism of Israel in the Red Sea (Cor. 10:1) is held to be an allusion to the rabbinic rule concerning the baptism of proselytes.

The scanty evidence available indicates that male proselytes were circumcised and females were baptized. Jeremias has collected data on this, as did Strack and Billerbeck (Kommen-tar I, 110-112). When families turned to embrace the Jewish faith it is taken for granted that children and even infants were included, according to the oldest rabbinic (Tannaitic) sources of about 100 A.D.

The people of Qumran, both in their Hymns and in the Manual of Discipline, mentioned purification from sin in connection with washing. In several passages on it repentance is said to be the condition for cleansing of the soul from sin. "Only through the Holy Spirit can he achieve union with God's truth and be purged from all his iniquities... Only by the submission of his soul to all the ordinances of God can his flesh be made clean. Only thus can it really be sprinkled by waters of ablution. Only thus can it really be sanctified by the waters of purification."(5)

The "Manual of Discipline" notes that forgiveness can only follow man's turning from sin and submission to God's command. "No one is to go into water in order to attain the purity of holy men. For men cannot be purified except they repent their evil."(6)

The use of water in connection with cleansing from sin is not explicit but the numerous cisterns at Qumran and at Masada, together with the language of these texts, argues for water absolutions. But it is clear that water has no effect unless accompanied by repentance and faith. Nothing is said about the conversion of families or the baptism of infants.

Advocates of infant baptism infer it from the practice of family baptisms. The study by the Church of Scotland agrees with Joachim Jeremias that there are several instances in the New Testament of families being baptized, under the "Oikas formula" as Jeremias calls it. Thus Paul baptized the household of Stephanas (I Cor. 1:16), Lydia and her household was baptized (Acts 16:15), the Jailor at Philippi was baptized with all his family (Acts 16:33), as was Crispus, ruler of the synagogue in Corinth (Acts 18:8). Since most family groups included some children and since family solidarity was prevalent the inference is that infants were included in these early instances of family conversions and baptisms.(7)

Jeremias infers baptism when Paul speaks of "his seal upon us" in connection with "His Spirit in our hearts" (al Cor. 1:22). This is very doubtful exegesis.(8)

On the basis of Colossians 2:11, 12 Jeremias equates Christian baptism with the "circumcision of Christ" ignoring the fact that with Paul Christian circumcision is figurative, a "circumcision of the heart" rather than any external act Rom. 2:29; Deut. 10:16; 30:6; Jer. 9:26). Defenders of infant baptism are perplexed by I Cor. 7:14 where Paul states that children born to parents, one of whom is a Christian, are considered "holy." A child born to a Jewish proselyte, who had been baptized, was considered "holy" and hence did not need baptism. It would follow, therefore that children born to Christian parents are already "holy" and do not need baptism to initiate them into the family of God. Paul's statement implies that infant baptism was unknown in Cornith. To counter this Jeremias makes ineffective appeal to his "proof-text" which, he assumes, equates baptism with circumcision.(9)

Another argument is that John 3:8-- "except ye be born of water and of the spirit" means water baptism, a very incautious exegesis in view of the background of this Scripture in Isaiah and Ezekiel in which the "water" is clearly figurative and not material (Isa. 44:3; Ezek. 36:25-27).

Jeremias has been challenged by an equally thorough study of the same sources by a distinguished German New Testament scholar.(10) Aland notes that Jeremias makes a characteristically thorough study of all available primary sources, but that his methodology is hazardous in that he makes an inference that cannot be proven and uses that inference as a basis for another conclusion without having proven the validity of the first. In his zeal to build his case, he cumulatively arranges arguments which become more and more dogmatic.

Many of the texts cited by Jeremias to prove infant baptism in the early church are shown by Aland to be ambiguous. His proof text (Col. 2:11) is over worked. Jeremias himself, in his German edition, agreed that in the light of I Corinthians 7:14 the practice of infant baptism at the church of Corinth was unknown. This is because children who had one Christian parent were considered "holy" with nothing said about baptism being the means of that holiness. Jeremias makes much of the difference between baptism in a missionary situation and that of infants born to Christian parents. This, as Aland points out, was a distinction unknown to writers of the New Testament or to the early church fathers. The earliest Christian documents which make explicit reference to baptism include in order the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas dated from about 100 to 150 A.D. In the Didache, for example, instruction is given prior to baptism and such instruction automatically rules out applying baptism to infants. In addition, it specified that recipients of baptism should fast for one or two days and this eliminates infants. The Shepherd of Hermas presupposes a period of probation prior to baptism, which also rules out infants. And in the Epistle of Barnabas baptism is mentioned in connection with the candidate being full of sin and defilement of the flesh (11:11). In the Apology of Aristides (15:6) reference is to the baptism of children but not of infants: "They instruct the servants and maids of the children when any of them have such that they may become Christians on account of the love which they have for them." The impression is that they are baptized and regarded as full Christians and participate in the eucharist. In the writings of Clement of Alexandria, there are many passages concerning children which Jeremias does not quote, but of the twenty passages referring to children nothing is said about their baptism. Baptism, says Aland, is for the forgiveness of faults which have been committed and this would, of course, exclude infants who have nothing for which they need to be forgiven.

The earliest Latin witness implies that infant baptism was an innovation in 200 A.D. Tertullian says that children should come for baptism after they are able to learn and be instructed in the Christian way. Tertullian apparently speaks to all children or infants in the community irrespective of whether they belong to parents already baptized or to Catechumens.(11)

Tertullian's work, dated about 200 A.D., bears witness to the introduction of infant baptism in North Africa against which he was protesting. Fifty years after Tertullian, infant baptism was the norm, so obviously his effort was unsuccessful. This would argue against infant baptism as being a continuation from primitive times.

There is much in the New Testament that cannot be reconciled with infant baptism. It is significant that baptism is always linked with a command to repent and believe (Mark 1:4,5, 15; Matt. 28:19; Acts 2:38; 8:13), something infants cannot do. In the writings of St. Paul, baptism is linked with the death of the old life and the resurrection to a new life Rom. 6:1-5; Col. 2:12). The earliest baptismal formulas call for "renunciation of the devil and all his works," language appropriate for an adult but not for an infant. The argument that baptism takes the place of circumcision as a right which incorporates one into the kingdom is actually contrary to the spirit of the New Testament. Paul and John the Evangelist emphasize that it is contrary to the Christian spirit for the Jews to assume that one is automatically in the kingdom because he is a son of Abraham (Rom. 2:25-29; John 8:39). Equally emphatic is John the Baptist that a true child of God is one who keeps the commandments and believes in God's Son regardless of whether he is circumcised or whether he is a descendant of Abraham (Luke 3:8). If insistence on circumcision can amount to a betrayal of faith as a condition of salvation (Gal. 5:2-6) cannot the same be said of the application of water where faith is nonexistent? In short the "circumcision of Christ" is the "circumcision of the heart" and has nothing to do with external rites such as water baptism. It is true that children are of the kingdom of heaven, that they are innocent, and that their parents and god-parents do well to bring them to Jesus for His blessing and for parents to dedicate their children. But this dedication and acceptance by God is a covenant on the part of sponsors rather than any intrinsic change in the infant himself. It simply minimizes the significance of baptism to apply it to an infant to whom it means nothing whereas the parents' act can be just as truly dedication whether or not water is used.

If this is the case, how does it happen that infant baptism is so widely practiced from an early time in Christian history? Aland, in further pursuing the evidence mentioned by Jeremias, considered indirect testimonies to infant baptism of the second century. In this he adduces evidence not cited by Jeremias, showing that repeatedly Jeremias has produced evidence and read into it meanings which are not obvious and in some cases, distorts evidence which is contrary to his position. First Clement, for example (96 A.D.), states that the letter was delivered by messengers who "have walked among us from youth to old age unblameably." Such an aged person, in 96 A.D., living in Italy, would have been born a paga, so that the phrase aponeotos theodouleuo means "from youth" not "from infancy" as Jeremias states it. With reference to St. Paul and the primitive church (see I Cor. 7: 14,) Aland says, "to consider infant baptism as direct continuation of circumcision is not possible on the basis of historical evidence."(12) Probably the most thorough study of Pauline doctrine of baptism is that of Rudolph A. Schnackenburg, who argues that Colossians 2:12 is a condensation of Romans 6:4, in both of which union with Christ in baptism leads in Romans to deliverance from sin and in Colossians to deliverance from heresy.(13) In summary, the whole early period shows that baptism is only for adults. "Infant baptism appears sporadically towards the end of the second century and was indeed practiced all during the following century, yet only as an exception.(14)

III. BAPTISM DURING THE MIDDLE AGES

The doctrine which dominated the church during the Middle Ages, and up to the present, goes back to the teachings of Augustine who continued the Pauline idea according to which the significance of baptism is the forgiveness of sins. Augustine said that this applies both to actual sin and to original sin (cf. Rom. 5:12). According to Augustine, this later sinfulness inherited from Adam called Original Sin "would indeed alone suffice, without actual sin, to bring man to damnation unless baptism occurs."(15) Baptism removes Original Guilt, but does not remove Original Sin. In other words, according to Augustine, even infants participated in the act of Adam's sin and thus incurred guilt after the analogy of Aaron paying tithes to Melchezedek because he was "in Abraham's loins" (Heb. 7:9,10). Thus baptism removes the guilt arising from Adam's sin, but does not affect the principle of the Original Sin which is expressed in an inclination to evil (concupiscentia).

IV. REFORMATION TEACHING

Luther was an Augustinian monk and his policy was to retain practices of the Catholic Church unless the Scripture specifically forbade them. Luther, in 1518, believed that the infant was regenerated at baptism through the merit of the faith of its sponsors. But in 1520, he believed that in baptism the infants themselves believed. After 1528, Luther retained this belief, but based it upon such texts as Matthew 28:19 and Mark 10:14. Since Luther accepted the Augustinian belief that baptism removed Original Guilt, he also accepted the Augustinian belief that baptism removed Original Guilt in infants. But Zwingli believed baptism was the outward sign of an inward work of grace. As applied to infants, it was true only "in virtue of God's promise that the children of Christian parents are as much members of the Christian church as Jewish children were members of the Jewish church.(16) In other words, the validity of infant baptism for the Christian rests on the analogy of the Old Testament. With Calvin, John 3:5 was not to be interpreted literally any more than Matthew 3:11. In other words, water is no more necessary than fire to make the new birth effective.

It is important to note that among the Lutherans and the Calvinists, the church was conceived as coexistent with society and hence it was easier for them to accept the principle of infant baptism. The more radical branches of the Reformation, which conceived of the church as a society of saints independent of secular society, tended to reject infant baptism. Incidently the Lutherans and Calvinists were Augustinian with reference to the doctrine of Original Sin while the Anabaptists tended to be Arminian in doctrine and to reject this phase of Augustinianism and hence the baptism of infants. Among the Quakers "the baptism of infants is human tradition for which neither precept nor practice is found in Scripture,"(17) declared their leading theologian.

In the Anglican Church Lutheranism was the dominant influence, especially with reference to baptism. "The Augustinian influence shows itself most strongly in the first great English divine after the Reformation, Hooker."(18)

Said Hooker (b. 1554) of the church of Rome:

The infusion of grace . . . is applied to infants through baptism, without either faith or works, and in them it really taketh away original sin, and the punishment due unto it; it is applied unto infidels and wicked men in their first justification through baptism, without works, yet not without faith; and it taketh away both sin actual and original, together with all whatsoever punishment eternal or temporal thereby deserved.(19)

The Anglican Church retained this element in Roman Catholicism, namely that we receive the Holy Spirit through the waters of baptism and thereby the removal of Original Guilt and regeneration.(20)

John Wesley accepted this doctrine of the Roman Catholic and Anglican church, known as baptismal regeneration, at least with regard to infants. Proof of this is seen in the following:

In 1751 he published a tract entitled, "Thoughts Upon Infant Baptism, extracted from a Late Writer" (Bristol, 1751). The "late writer" is not identified. In this essay it is argued that baptism is the Christian equivalent of circumcision and hence like circumcision should be applied to children incapable of repentance (Gal. 3:27; Col. 2:12). He quotes Irenaeus with approval that all baptized persons are regenerated unto God; infants, youth and adults: (Adv. Haer. 11,3.). Irenaeus and Clement of Alexander elsewhere equate regeneration with baptism even saying that Jesus was regenerated when he was baptized by John (p. 11). The same is true of Clement of Alexander (Paedagod, I, 6), who declared, "Regeneration is the same as Baptism." Wesley also quotes with approval statements by Origen and Ambrose that baptism removes in infants the pollution of our birth homily on Luke 14), or the "Pollution of Sin" (Comm. on Rom. V), thus reforming them "back again from Wickedness to the primitive State of their Nature" (Ambrose on Luke 1:17, p. 16). It is clear therefore that Wesley agreed that baptism removed Original Guilt and regenerated infants. However, the language of these early Fathers did not distinguish, as Augustine and his successors did, between Original Guilt resulting from Adam's sin, which baptism is said to remove, and Original Sin or pollution resulting from Adam's sin, which baptism does not remove. Evangelicals today do not believe with Augustine, Luther and Wesley that infants actually participated in Adam's sin and hence incur Original Guilt, therefore this argument for Infant baptism is invalid.

Later (In 1750, 1756) Wesley published A Treatise on Baptism. This was a slightly abridged copy of his father's essay, entitled "A Short Discourse on Baptism," published in 1700, although its author is not acknowledged. With reference to the baptism of infants Samuel and John Wesley declare:

By Baptism, we... are made the children of God. And this regeneration, . . . which our church, in so many places ascribes to baptism, is being 'grafted into the body of Christ's church. . .' By water then, as a means, the water of baptism, we are regenerated or born again.(21)

This is precisely the doctrine of baptismal regeneration accepted by Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans and revived by the disciples of Alexander Campbell, but unsparingly denounced by the early Methodist preachers of the American frontier.

John Wesley never did disavow this view. In his sermon on "The Marks of the New Birth," preached in 1743 and later, he notes that it is commonly agreed that the privilege of being a child of God as a result of being born of water and of the Spirit, is "ordinarily annexed to baptism."(22)

In his sermon of "The New Birth," preached since 1743 and published in 1760, Wesley was more specific. Baptism, he declared, is distinct from regeneration; one is outward and physical and the other inward and spiritual. He states further that in the case of adults they do not always go together. In Wesley's words,

A man may possibly be 'born of water,' and yet not 'born of the Spirit.' There may be sometimes the outward sign, where there is not the inward grace. I do not speak with regard to infants; it is certain our Church supposes that all who are baptized in their infancy are at the same time born again; and it is allowed that the whole Office for the Baptism of Infants proceeds upon this supposition. Nor is it an objection of any weight against this, that we. cannot comprehend how this can be wrought in a person of riper years. 'But whatever the case with infants, it is sure that all of riper years who are baptized are not at the same time born again.(23)

Here Wesley refuses to acknowledge that an infant is less capable of repenting and believing than an adult, so much is he under the influence of church tradition, or an inherited theology. Yet his evangelical experience and insight later compelled reservations about the baptismal regeneration of infants. This is reflected in the Church Orders of 1784 which deleted passages sup-porting baptismal regeneration. To appeal to the authority of Wesley and to allege the precedent of circumcision in the Old Testament is to bypass both responsible New Testament exegesis and evangelical theology, in favor of a state-church tradition.

If infant baptism, in spite of the biblical evidence, is practiced, it should be followed by the Sacrament of Confirmation at which time the baptized child can intelligently and responsibly reaffirm, as his personal commitment, that repentance, faith and new birth to which baptism bears witness.

If baptism is reserved for those persons who repent and believe on Jesus, it avoids the too-prevalent assumption that baptism in itself assures entrance into the Kingdom.

In recent years there has been a deep and extensive study of baptism, especially in Europe and in the World Council of Churches. Biblical theologians have drawn attention to the scandelous condition in which nearly all citizens of a nation are baptized in the state church, and yet only a small fraction are practicing Christians. Karl Barth and Emil Brunner both studied the subject and came out in support of baptism only for believers, an Anabaptist position at variance with that of Roman Catholicism and of the Reformers.(24)

All must agree that the New Testament links baptism with the new birth, dying out to the old nature and reviving to "put on the New Man." This being the case, we are driven to accept the Catholic and Orthodox doctrine of the sacraments which makes the application of water coincide with and instrumental in making one a Christian, or to reduce the rite from its full New Testament Import. In other words, as Beasley-Murray puts it, "We either make ourselves bad Protestants or we become poor Catholics."(25)

V. CONCLUSION

Most Christians agree that the sacrament of baptism is important, that it is commanded in the New Testament and is mandatory for disciples of Christ. It has been shown that it has often been regarded as a magical rite that contains intrinsic merit and that this borders on superstition. It is also evident that when regarded simply as an initiatory rite it has more in common with pagan practices and with the Old Testament than with New Testament teachings. The central thrust of the New Testament, whether in the words of the Baptist, of St. John, or of St. Paul Is to associate it with regeneration -- a departure from the ways of death to a new life.

In order therefore to give to baptism Its maximum significance it should be administered, as in the New Testament, in situations where this spiritual change actually occurs. It follows from this that its fullest meaning occurs only when persons capable of grasping Its significance are the candidates. Such cannot be said of infant baptism.

Parents should still consider it their privilege and obligation to dedicate their infants to the Lord and accept the obligations implicit therein. In any case baptism should not be administered to infants unless it is followed in due time with the equally Important rite of confirmation.

DOCUMENTATIONS

1. O. K. and M .M. Armstrong, The Indomitable Baptists (Double-day, 1967), p. 115f.

2. Albrecht Oepke, "The Meaning of Bapto and Baptidzo," Kittel, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1964-68), 1.533.

3. Epictitus. Dissertations, II, 19-21.

4. Testament of Levi 14.6.

5. IQS, ii, 25ff "Manual of Discipline," Translated by T.H. Gaster, The Dead Sea Scriptures (Doubleday, 1956, 1964).

6. IQS v, 10. Also "God will purge all the acts of man.. cleansing him by the holy spirit from all the effects of wickedness. Like waters of purification he will sprinkle upon him the spirit of truth, to cleanse him.. of all pollution." IQS, iv, 24 (Gaster).

7. Joachim Jeremias. Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries (SCM, 1960), pp. 19-24.

8. Jeremias, op. cit., p.40.

9. Col. 2:11,12, "In him also you were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; and you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead."

10. Kurt Aland, Did the Early Church Baptize Infants (Westminster Press, 1963).

11. Tertullian, De Baptismo, Ch. XIV.

12. Aland, op. cit., p.83.

13. R. Schnackenburg, Baptism in the Thought of St. Paul (Herder & Herder, 1964), p.71.

14. Hans Lietzmann, Encyclopedia Britannica (1959), "Baptism," Vol.3, p.84.

15. Loc. cit.

16. Ibid., p. 85.

17. Barclay, Apology I, IV, XII.

18. Taylor, Platonism, p.26.

19. Richard Hooker, "A Learned Discourse of Justification," Ecclesiastical Polity (Everyman's Library), I, 19.

20. Jeremy Taylor, Works, I, 155.

21. Cited in L. Tyerman, Life and Times of John Wesley, II, 264.

22. J. Wesley, "The Marks of the New Birth." Wesley's Standard Sermons, E. H. Sugden, Editor (Lamar & Barton, n.d.), I, 283.

23. Ibid., II, 238.

24. Karl Barth, The Teaching of the Church Regarding Baptism. Markus Barth, Die Taufe, em Sakramant? (Zurich: Zollikon). Bo Reicke, The Disobedient Spirits and Christian Baptism (Kobenhavn, 1946).

25. G.R. Beasley-Murray, Baptism Today and Tomorrow (Macmillan, 1966), p. 136.

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