Failure in Baptist Thinking


The baptism of infants, no doubt, presupposes that salvation is altogether of the Lord. No infant can be the Lord’s unless it is the Lord who makes him such. If salvation waits on anything we can do, no infant can be saved; for there is nothing that an infant can do. In that case no infant can have a right to the sign and seal of salvation. But infants in this do not differ in any way from adults; of all alike it is true that it is only “of God” that they are in Christ Jesus. The purpose of Paul in arguing out the doctrine of signs and seals, was to show once for all from the typical case of Abraham that salvation is always a pure gratuity from God, and signs and seals do not precede it as its procuring cause or condition, but follow it as God’s witness to its existence and promise to sustain it. Every time we baptize an infant we bear witness that salvation is from God, that we cannot do any good thing to secure it, that we receive it from his hands as a sheer gift of his grace, and that we all enter the Kingdom of heaven therefore as little children, who do not do, but are done for.

B.B. Warfield

Because baptism now replaces circumcision, it follows that every Christian who neglects to have his own children baptized in infancy, cuts them off from himself and from the people of God.  What an awesome sin of omission, then, is committed by some of our dear Christian brethren who refuse baptism to their own little infants and thus despise the sacrament of the saving grace of God!

Dr. Francis Nigel Lee

In the old covenant the first fruits belong to the Lord. The believer’s income belongs to the Lord. The believer’s children belong to the Lord. The meaning behind covenant is that we are God’s possession. Baptism is the New Testament covenantal seal, and sign that was the mark of God’s ownership placed upon every newborn child in the household. This is standard covenant theology. In the Old covenant the children went with the parents and the male child was marked as God’s property by circumcision. In the New covenant, which is more expansive, every child is proclaimed to be owned by God (God’s property) by the placing of the sign of the covenant upon the child.

The Baptists make hash out of the idea of a “new and better covenant” by insisting that while in the old and worse covenant children were included in the covenant community but now those children of believers are not in a covenant that is referred to as “new and better.”

The idea of being God’s property is the meaning of the sign of the covenant, and baptism is a covenant rite. When we fail to baptize our children we are proclaiming either that our children are NOT God’s possession or we are proclaiming that our children might not be NOT God’s possession until they decide first. However, by emphasizing that our children have to be able to make a decision for Christ before the Spirit of Christ is able to make a decision claiming our children sets the meaning of a completely gratuitous redemption completely on its head as Warfield notes in the opening quote. Reformed Baptists not bringing their infants for Baptism gives the contradiction between the idea of “Reformed,” and “Baptist.” In the words of Big Bird on Sesame Street, “One of these things just doesn’t belong. Can you name which one?”

When we present our children for Baptism one hymn we might sing would go like this:

We give thee but thy own
Ordained by thy decree
The gift was given by thee alone
Your favor now we plea

And having now blessed us
We pour on them thy sign
And place in you our trust
For their lives as your design

Baptism is, above all else, the sign of the covenant. Being in covenant is the recognition that we and our children, our income and our possessions are the Lord’s. We are his possession and his property. If it is the case that we, the parents, are the Lord’s property then it only stands to reason that any children we have are the property of the Lord’s as well and so should be given the sign (Baptism) that is God’s brand that signifies His property.

To neglect to give the sign of the covenant to our children is an act of treason against God’s ownership. It is saying … “You may own us God but we will not obey you and give our children the mark that proclaims your ownership of your children.”

Baptists must repent but they need to be reminded that God delights in the repenting of His people. Embrace the Reformed … hold the Baptist.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *