Why it’s so good to baptise babies

Many Christians in all sincerity question the wisdom of baptising babies, even the babies of committed Christian believers. In this part of the website, whilst respecting the opinions of those Christians with whom we differ, we argue that not only is Christian Family Baptism biblical but it is positively good and should therefore be encouraged.

First we explain why we believe it to be biblical and then we set out reasons why we believe it to be a positive good.

The Bible and Christian Family Baptism

We do not pretend that indiscriminate infant baptism can be defended from scripture, however we advance the following lines of evidence from scripture in support of the baptism of children from Christian families, whilst accepting that there is no watertight case (please pardon the pun) from scripture either for or against the practise. Here goes, then, with our biblical reasons:

1. The two signs (or sacraments) of the old covenant, circumcision and Passover, were administered to the children of believing families and there is sufficient continuity between the two covenants (see Romans 4, Colossians 2.9-15) to suggest that the signs of the new covenant might properly be given to children of Christian families. In the case of circumcision, the rite of initiation into the privileges of the Old covenant, a specific link with baptism is made in Colossians 2.9-12.

2. In the book of Acts, whole families or households were baptised (Acts 16.15, 16.33)

3. Gospel preaching in Acts that includes baptism as a response specifically includes children (Acts 2.39). See also Paul’s exhortation to the Philippian jailer (Acts 16.31).

What’s so good about baptising babies?

In this section we advance two main reasons for positively advocating Christian family baptism:

1. It magnifies the grace of God. The helplessness and vulnerability of the child is an illustration of our own helplessness before God and inability to save ourselves.

Through our blindness and sin we never make the first move towards God. The initiative is always his. His grace goes before, creating in us a spiritual thirst for himself, convicting us of our sin, opening our eyes to see the truth of his Gospel and giving us the gift of faith to believe in it.

As a sign of God’s grace, baptism given at the beginning of life, witnesses to the priority of God’s grace, over and against human response.

2. It includes Christian children fully in the life of the church. Most children parents would agree that the ideal is for a child to know and love the Lord Jesus from their earliest years. Many adults who have had a Christian upbringing would say that they have never known the time when they have not believed in Jesus, although of course their knowledge of Jesus and of the implications of following him has grown and matured over the years.

If our aim is that the children of Christian parents should grow up as a Christians, never in fact knowing a time when they were not believers, it seems only right that our basic stance towards our children both in the home and in the church is to treat them as believers, until and unless they give some indication of being otherwise (which we pray they will never do).

A decision to treat our children as Christians is likely to lead to us having them baptised because there is no separate and enduring category in scripture of unbaptised believers. In the Bible, believers are baptised at the beginning of their Christian lives, without preparation or a probationary period. This would suggest that Christian children should be baptised at the beginning of their lives.

(Although not everyone would want to follow the logic of this argument in the way they treat their children in practise, not to have our children baptised is in effect to treat them as unbelievers).

Encouraging the baptism of babies

To summarise, it is for these two reasons that we positively wish to encourage Christian family baptism:

1. it encourages a right attitude to God: the baptism of a small defenceless child at the beginning of its life, magnifies the grace of God in a culture which is too man-centered and over concerned with human response

2. it encourages the right attitude to Christian children: we treat them as full members of the family of the church from the beginning of their lives.

For these reasons we would positively encourage Christian parents to have their children baptised. We agree with the 39 Articles that the baptism of infants is ‘most agreeable with the institution of Christ’ (Articles 27).