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Shall We Baptize Children? Part 2: Scriptural Foundations | Sam Waldron

by | Jul 10, 2025 | Ecclesiology, Historical Theology, Practical Theology, Systematic Theology

 

*Editor’s Note: The following blog series titled “Shall We Baptize Children” was originally delivered by Pastor Sam Waldron to his congregation, Grace Reformed Baptist Church (Owensboro, KY), as Sunday School lessons to help his congregation better understand Baptism. The view expressed by Dr. Waldron in this series is not the uniform position of all professors of CBTS nor the official view of the Seminary. As more installments of this series are released, each part will be linked together.

To read part 1 of this series click here.

 

General Introduction: On the Practice of Our Reformed Baptist Forefathers

Mark Dever and Capitol Hill Baptist Church practice adult only baptism. Here is part of the statement from their website in which they state their understanding of historic, Particular and Reformed Baptist practice on this issue:

while it is not generally known among American evangelicals today, the practice of baptizing pre-teenage children is of recent development (largely early 20th century) and of limited geography (largely limited to the United States, and places where American evangelicals have exercised great influence). Baptists in the past were known for waiting to baptize until the believers were adults.  Baptistic Christians around the world are still much more cautious than modern American Christians, often waiting in Europe, Africa and Asia to baptize until children are grown and are in their 20’s.

I found this both an interesting and informative statement and wanted to know if it was accurate. Therefore, I asked our own very knowledge-able Baptist Historian, Pastor Ron Miller of Clarksville, TN if he agreed with it. Here is what he wrote me:

Yes, I do. To the best of my understanding that is a very accurate historical statement. The only possible improvement I would make is that the word “preteen” could also be replaced with “early to mid-teenage” and still be accurate. …. I’ve been studying the age of baptism in the 17th century for the Particular Pilgrims broadcast. What I have found is that the Particular Baptists practiced “adult baptism”. This is their common way of describing their position. Other historians agree that is their view. They of course argued against infant or “childish” baptism. These names seem to be rooted in the legal system of the day. People of age were called adults and everyone else was an infant. I often wondered why there weren’t other categories like young child, older child, teenager, etc in the literature. But it seems they were working with these two legal categories in their minds. The earliest age of baptism I can find is no earlier than 16. This matches being “of age” or “of the age of maturity” or “adult” in British law at the time. So a person could marry, make a contract, etc. So this was the age they could join themselves to a congregation by covenant or pledge as the Baptists typically did. And since baptism always led to church membership, they weren’t separate questions or events. Baptism had to happen at a time when they joined a local church. …. Of course Baptists of the time most often describe baptism as that of believers. But when they discuss age, it was only done as adults. …. Finally, in my study I don’t see any change in this until the 1800s and revivalism. There is another brother who has studied the 18th century and found the practices to be the same as in the 17th. From my reading I would agree with this.

If you are like me, you may find these assessments of Reformed Baptist history surprising and even shocking—given the common practice of Baptists in the USA today.

But, of course, the issue is not what tradition—even our own tradition says—, it is rather what the Scriptures teach. But those early Baptists also believed in sola scriptura. Thus, the history I have cited should, however, make us ask this question: What is it about the Bible that led to their practice and which we may have overlooked?

This leads us into a study of the scriptural foundations which must be considered with regard to this question of the baptism of children. Right now in my notes I have four such scriptural foundations which I would like to consider. The first one is this:

 

Section 1: A Biblical Theology of Minor Children

I think something that is commonly appreciated among us is actually true. The present generation of so-called “evangelical Christians” is not known for its depth of biblical knowledge. One of the things that led me to feel a call for the ministry in my early college days was the growing conviction that there was a bankruptcy of biblical knowledge among such evangelicals. This abysmal lack of biblical knowledge and doctrine is manifested in many ways. But it is also manifested in what I can only call a terrible naivete about children which leads to superficial practice with regard to child evangelism and, yes, the baptism of children. What is necessary to correct this is what I am calling here, A Biblical Theology of Minor Children. There are a number of seriously important but sadly neglected passages on this issue. In the remainder of this class I want to set them before you in order that you may feel their united force and implications clearly. The first passage in this biblical collage is …

 

1 Corinthians 13:11

1 Corinthians 13:11—When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.

  • What is the context of this statement? 

Some good men believe that in this context Paul is contrasting the condition of the church before the completion of the canon and the condition of the church as to knowledge after the completion of the canon. I rather think that in the context Paul is contrasting the condition of the church in the darkness of the present age with the light and glory of the coming age. This is what is in view when he says in 1 Corinthians 13:10: “… but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.” This is also what is in view in my opinion in 1 Corinthians 13:12: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.”

Now with regard to this contrast, Paul searches in his mind for an illustration. The one he hits on is found in our text. To illustrate this contrast, he points to the difference between adults and children. And that leads me to my second question.

  • What are the ways in which Paul contrasts children and adults?

Paul uses three key verbs to contrast adults and children.

The first contrast uses the common word meaning,“speak.” This is a general word. It is the same one used so many times in 1 Corinthians 14 to refer to speaking in tongues, speaking prophecy, and speaking in general. John Gill comments as follows:

When I was a child I spake as a child, …. That cannot speak plain, aims at words rather than expresses them, delivers them in a lisping or stammering manner: hereby the apostle illustrates the then present gift of speaking with divers tongues, which was an extraordinary gift of the Spirit, was peculiar to some persons, and what many were very fond of; and yet this, in its highest degree and exercise, was but like the lisping of a child, in comparison of what will be known and expressed by saints, when they come to be perfect men in heaven:

The second contrast uses the word, think. The verb, think, refers, of course, to the mind. Matthew Poole comments here as follows:

See on Romans 8:5. The kindred noun φρένες occurs only once in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 14:20, where also it is associated with children in the sense of reflection or discrimination. Rev. renders felt; but the verb, as Edwards correctly remarks, is not the generic term for emotion, though it may be used for what includes emotion. The reference here is to the earlier undeveloped exercise of the childish mind; a thinking which is not yet connected reasoning.

Look at the two passages which Poole mentions. Romans 8:5 says: “For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.” Christians and Non-Christians focus their minds on two different objects. 1 Corinthians 14:20 reads: “Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature.” What does Paul mean by “do not be children in your thinking.” He tells us in the rest of the verse. He wants them to be immature with regard to their experience of evil. With regard to that he wants them to have child-like innocence. But with regard to their thinking he wants the opposite. He wants them to be “perfect” the original says, but this is the common word used in the New Testament for maturity. Children are immature in the way they think. They do not think like mature adults. On this fact, Gill remarks:

I understood as a child; and so does he that understands all mysteries, in comparison of the enlightened and enlarged understandings of glorified saints; the people of God, who are in the highest form and class of understanding, in the present state of things, are but children in understanding; it is in the other world, when they are arrived to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, that they will in understanding be men:

The third contrast uses the word, reason. This is the Greek word from which we get the word, logic, and all the words which end in “ology.” It speaks of how one reasons or carefully and logically thinks through something. We laugh at our children because of the funny way they sometimes reason or think. Recently one of my grand-daughters was told by her Mom to go play outside in the sun. She complained, I do not like the sun. Many such funny things doth Molly Beth say because she reasons as a child. The fact is that children think or reason differently than adults. Gill says:

I thought, or “reasoned” as a child; whose thoughts are low and mean, and reasonings very weak; and so are the thoughts and reasonings of such as have all knowledge here below, in comparison of that perfect knowledge, those clear ideas, and strong reasonings of the spirits of just men above: but when I became a man, I put away childish things; childish talk, childish affections, and childish thoughts and reasonings; so when the saints shall be grown to the full age of Christ, and are become perfect men in him, tongues shall cease, prophecies shall fail, and knowledge vanish away; and in the room thereof, such conversation, understanding, and knowledge take place, as will be entirely suited to the manly state in glory.

By way of conclusion to our study of 1 Corinthians 13:11 we must certainly say that Paul understood there to be a very great difference between the understanding of children and the understanding of adults. At the very least, we have to say that this difference must be taken into account in assessing the spiritual condition of our children.

 

Ephesians 4:13-14

Ephesians 4:13-14 reads: “… until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming.”

In this context Paul is speaking about the purposes for which Christ gave various gifts of ministry to the church. In verse 11 he speaks of apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers.

This leads Paul to enlarge on the purpose or necessity of these gifts. The need for such gifts arises from the immaturity of the church’s understanding of spiritual things. The purpose of such gifts is to remedy that immaturity by bringing the church to a mature understanding of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God.

As in 1 Corinthians 13:11 so here Paul searches for an illustration of this maturing process. His mind once more goes to a very natural illustration. That illustration is children who need to mature in their understanding into adulthood.

But here Paul proceeds to speak of the danger in which both children and a child-like church find themselves. Verse 14 speaks of this danger: “tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming.” Children and child-like churches are in danger of being deceived because of the immaturity, weakness, and hence instability of their understandings. Simpson comments as follows:

Believers are to be children, yet not absolutely such. Certain qualities of the child they are to emulate; for, if destitute of its simplicity and guilelessness, they cannot possess true infancy of heart. But childish traits should be shunned as resolutely as childlike graces should be fostered. What is here censured is the fickleness of children’s volatile moods, shifting like a kaleidoscope, dazzled by the first glittering bauble or flimsy distraction that catches their eye, and liable to be beguiled by every siren ditty of allurement within earshot. How incongruous with “Christian hearts of oak” is this humorsome and ductile temper!

This reality points us to the difficulty of attributing stability and permanence to the affirmations of our children. Those child-like pronouncements and statements cannot be trusted to remain stable. There is an inherent instability and vulnerability to deception in children.

This is good to remember on the part of parents. They do not need to react in alarm when their five year old makes some heretical pronouncement about God or the Bible. They simply need to correct that pronouncement. It does not carry the same weight of permanence as that of an adult.

But another application of this natural instability of children is that their good commitments and proper decisions cannot be regarded with the same weight as those of adults. We may regard such commitments and decisions with encouragements, but we ought not attribute the same weight and stability to the commitments and decisions of a ten year old as we do to a twenty year old.

The application of this to our evaluation of the professions of faith by children seems clear. We should be encouraged by them. Certainly! But there should also be a certain reserve and caution about them which should make us refrain from trumpeting the triumph of the gospel far and wide!

 

John 9:18-23

18 The Jews then did not believe it of him, that he had been blind and had received sight, until they called the parents of the very one who had received his sight, 19 and questioned them, saying, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? Then how does he now see?” 20 His parents answered them and said, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21 but how he now sees, we do not know; or who opened his eyes, we do not know. Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself.” 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. 23 For this reason his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

The interesting thing about this passage is statement twice made by formerly blind man’s parents. Both in verse 21 and verse 23 they make the statement, “he is of age.” Then in both statements the natural result of being “of age” is stated. In verse 21 they conclude from this face that “he will speak for himself.” In verse 23 they simply add the practical consequence of his being “of age;” ask him they say. Clearly in their minds until they reach a certain age children are not able or have authority to speak for themselves.

I am not attributing any kind of inspiration to the blind man’s parents when they use these words. At the same time, they certainly are reflecting in some way a cultural norm which governed Jewish society at the time. There is a parallel statement in Hebrews 11:24-26 which appears to confirm the common sense idea that until they reach a certain age children are not able to speak for themselves.

24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, 26 considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward.

Notice the assumption contained in verse 24: “when he had grown up.” It was then that he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter and chose to be identified with the people of God. The language of the text literally says, when he had become great. All the major English translations recognize that this is a reference to his maturation into adulthood. The NIV, RSV, and ESV all translate exactly as the NASB. The KJV translates, “when he was come to years.” The NKJV translates, “when he became of age.”

Thus, the idea of the blind man’s parents of coming to a certain age where one can speak for oneself is not a strange idea peculiar to them. It looks like a culture-wide norm. And does this not reflect something that has the force of a kind of natural law. Children cannot speak for themselves. Their parents must speak for them until they come of age. It seems to me that this notion has both natural law and special revelation behind it.

Now if that is the case, it is necessary to ask what age in Jewish society children became able to speak for themselves. There is a consensus about this among commentators.

John Gill remarks:

… he is of age; at man’s estate, as, with the Jews, one was, who was at the age of thirteen years, if he could produce the signs of puberty: and such an one was allowed a witness in any case, but not under this age; nor if he was arrived to it, if the above signs could not be produced (q). This man very likely was much older, as may be thought from the whole of his conduct, his pertinent answers, and just reasoning: wherefore his parents direct the Sanhedrin to him for an answer to their third question,

Barnes states:

He is of age – He is of sufficient age to give testimony. Among the Jews this age was fixed at thirteen years

Both Leon Morris and William Hendriksen confirm this interpretation saying that at 13 years and one day a boy was thought to be of age.

I also checked Jewish websites on this issue. [https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-age-requirement-for-barbat-mitzvah/] Here was a helpful statement about the Jewish teaching just prior to the time of the New Testament.

In rabbinic literature (primarily the Mishnah and Babylonian Talmud, with respective editorial dates of approximately 200 CE and 550 CE), the ages of 12 years and one day for girls and 13 years and one day for boys–the ages widely regarded traditionally as the threshold of adulthood–begin to take on significance.

Interestingly, they add these comments:

At this point, a 13-year-old boy is obligated to participate in public, religious fasts. Likewise any vows he might make are to be regarded as valid.

Two criteria are given for this chronological marker for boys: physical maturation and moral discernment. The first is reflected in the assumption that at about that age, pubic hair appears. “A boy who has grown two [pubic] hairs is subject to all the commandments in the Torah.”

But physical signs are not enough. He must attain a certain age as well. “From the point of his birth until he is 13, he is called a boy or a baby. Even if within this period he grows a couple of [pubic] hairs, these are not considered evidence [of maturation], but [only] a mole [with hairs].”

Obviously, I am not saying that such ancient Jewish teaching is authoritative for us. I am only saying that it sheds light on the embodiment in the New Testament of a clear distinction between childhood and adulthood. This Jewish teaching makes clear that children were not able to make certain adult decisions and commitments.

 

Acts 8:12

“But when they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, men and women alike.”

This passage takes us out of the realm of traditional Jewish practice and into the realm of authoritative Christian practice. What does it teach us?

It certainly does not deny that children were baptized. At the same time, in light of all that we have seen already in this message it is difficult not to find substantial significance in its report of Philip’s practice in Samaria. When we ask, Who were baptized?, the answer supplied by the text is believing men and women. And the words used for men and women here are the words which have for their normal meaning adult males and adult females.

While this is the only passage in Acts which speaks of the baptism of adult males and females, it is parallel to another statement in the Book of Acts. This statement tends to confirm the implications which I have drawn from it. Turn to Acts 5:14: “And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women, were constantly added to their number …” Once more there is no mention here of children. It is adult males and adult females that are added to the number of the Jerusalem church. Such addition took place, of course, through baptism. Acts 2:41 is parallel: “So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls.”

Thus, while the text does not deny that children were baptized, it is completely silent about that. And in the context of the well understood distinction between children and adults practiced in Jewish society and assumed in the New Testament, this silence is golden and instructive. It certainly points to the conclusion that baptism is for adults capable of making adult decisions. Children cannot and may not make such vows and covenants.

 

Section 2: A Scriptural Understanding of Church Membership

 I. There is very close biblical connection between baptism should and membership in the local church.

One of the major problems with much of the practice of baptizing children as it is practiced far and wide is this. It often ignores the connection between baptism and church membership. Your pastors are united in their belief that baptism and church membership ought not to be disconnected and that church membership ought to be a consequence of baptism. There is a close connection between baptism and membership in the local church because …

1—This is what the meaning or symbolism of baptism requires. Baptism symbolizes and makes visible the inward and spiritual realities of union with Christ Romans 6:1-4).  Union with Christ, however, involves participation in the body of Christ—the church (Romans 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 10:16-17; 11:24, 27, 29; 1 Cor. 12:12-27; Eph. 1:22-23; 2:16; 3:6;4:4, 11, 12, 16; 5:23, 30; Col. 1:18, 24; 2:19; 3:15).  Union with Christ is, then, inseparable from or identical with union with the body of Christ, the church. Baptism, however, is the visible sign of union with Christ.  It cannot but be, then, the visible sign of union with His body—the church.  The universal church becomes visible only in the local church.  The local church is the visible, local expression of the body of Christ—the only appointed, visible, local expression of the body of Christ.  To become a visible Christian through baptism is to become a visible member of the body of Christ.  To become a member of the visible body of Christ is to become a member of the visible church.  To become a member of the visible church is to become a member of the local church.  Baptism=visible union with Christ=visible membership in the body of Christ=visible membership in the church=membership in the local church.  Thus, to disconnect baptism and the local church is to deny that baptism symbolizes visible union with Christ.  The glory of the local church is that it is the divinely appointed local, expression of the body of Christ.  To disconnect baptism from membership in the local church is to deny the glory of the local church.

2—This is what the Great Commission requires (Matt. 28:18-20). Baptists insist rightly that the order of the Great Commission requires that baptism be preceded by discipleship.  Often, however, they neglect to see that the Great Commission just as clearly requires that baptism be succeeded by instruction in the ordinances of Christ.  The school of Christ is the church.  It is in the context of the local church that the third part of the Great Commission is fulfilled (Acts 14:21-23).  It is to the local church first and foremost that pastor-teachers are given (Eph. 4:11-13).  It is just as contrary to the Great Commission and just as wrong to baptize disciples and not instruct them afterwards as it is to baptize those who are not disciples before.  Those baptized must be required to enroll in Christ’s school, that is, the local church.

3—This is what baptism’s identity as a church ordinance requires. Baptists rightly insist that only the church and its authorized representatives have a right to baptize.  Those originally charged to baptize were not all Christians promiscuously or individually, but the Apostles of Christ (Matt. 28:18-20) in their official capacity as those upon whose testimony the visible church was to be built (Matt. 16:16-18).  This means, however, that baptism is an ordinance of the visible church, and, thus, an ordinance under the authority of the church.  It is inconsistent and illogical to bestow a church ordinance on those who are not by this initiatory ordinance made members of the church.

4—Baptism confers the privilege of the Lord’s Table, a church ordinance under the discipline of the church. One of the pressing concerns of those who argue for the bestowal of baptism without undue delay on disciples is that such disciples might have the privilege of partaking of the Lord’s Supper.  Thus, those who argue in this fashion assume that the Lord’s Table requires the visible sign of baptism.  The reason, however, that the visible sign of baptism is required is just because the Lord’s Supper is the visible manifestation not only of our union with Christ, but of our union with His body, the church (1 Cor. 10:16-17).  Thus, to require baptism for partaking of the Lord’s Table is tacitly to admit that it is an ordinance of the visible church.  The local church is, however, the only appointed local expression of the visible church.  The key passage inseparably connects the Lord’s Table with the local church.  It is the church that gathers to celebrate the Lord’s Supper and the church that is despised by a wrong partaking (1 Cor. 11:17-22).  Those who are impenitent in sin should not be allowed to eat with the church (1 Cor. 5:11).  Thus, the Lord’s Supper is under the authority and discipline of the local church.  To allow that baptized non-members have a right to the Lord’s Table is, however, to adopt another theory of the Lord’s Table.  This theory must be that all baptized Christians (but not necessarily yet members of the church) are allowed to partake of the Lord’s Table on their own authority.  Either the Lord’s Supper is a church ordinance and for church members.  Or the Lord’s Supper is given to non-church members and not a church ordinance.  These are the alternatives.  If the Lord’s Supper is a church ordinance (as the Bible clearly teaches) and yet presumes baptism (as I and those with whom I arguing assume), then it must be that baptism and church membership are inseparably connected.

5—The New Testament assumes both that all Christians are baptized and that they are church members.  That is to say, the New Testament recognizes no class of Christians consisting of baptized non-church members. It is a simple and obvious fact that in passages like Romans 6:1-4 Paul assumes that all the Christians at Rome were baptized.  It is just as simple and clear that passages like Matthew 18:15-17; Hebrews 13:17; 1 Corinthians 1:2; and Phillipians 1:1 assume that all Christians are church members.  To disconnect baptism from church membership is to create a class of Christians who are baptized but not church members.  Quite simply, the New Testament knows of no such class of Christians.  In assuming that all Christians are both baptized and members of local churches, it teaches as clearly as one could wish that baptism and church membership are coincident.  It is, of course, true that exceptional circumstances exist.  In the New Testament and today there were those who as to their faith were genuine Christians who for a short period of time had not yet professed and made visible that faith by being baptized.  As a result of sin and all the irregularities that have developed because of it, there are Christians today who have been baptized and who are not at the moment members of churches.  This must not obscure for us the normative teaching of the New Testament that a professing Christian both is and ought to be both baptized and a church member.

6—This is what the order of Acts 2 requires. The order of Acts 2:41-42 is very clear and in the absence of any clear teaching to the contrary sets a precedent for us.  The order is welcoming the Word, baptism, and addition to the church.  Granted the words, to the church, are not verbally present, but they are necessarily implied.  This is so, first of all, because verse 42 speaks of the public life of the church with the ordinances of teaching, the Lord’s Table, prayer meetings, and giving.  This is so also because in Acts 5:14 the language of being added is again used, but in that context (Acts 5:10-14) it is clear that it speaks of being joined to the church.  This is so also because the language of Acts 2:41 and 47 speaks of addition to an existing society.  That addition was clearly to the 120 disciples spoken of in Acts 1.  This 120 was clearly the original church

7—It is neither safe nor principled for new Christians to be allowed to be without a church home. The one baptized is by the very fact of baptism being an initiatory ordinance usually a very new Christian.  Such Christians above all others need the care of a local church.  Such Christians according to the New Testament have a duty to be joined to the local church.  Such Christians, however, may like children be the least able to see what is both good for them and required of them.  For these reasons local churches must insist that such Christians when they are baptized join themselves to the church.  It is not safe for the new believer to have no church home.  It is not principled for the church to baptize someone who refuses to join the church when it is their clear responsibility.

8—In the Book of Acts we know of no separate ordinance by which baptized Christians became church members.  In other words, it appears that in every local situation a church was created by the simple act of the baptism of disciples. There is no record anywhere in the Book of Acts or in the New Testament of any ordinance, rite, or ceremony by which New Testament churches are formed. This is an extraordinary fact.  Given what we know about the importance of the local church in the New Testament, how can it accounted for?  I believe that it may and must probably be accounted for by understanding that the very act of baptism not only visibly joined the believer to Christ, but also visibly joined the believer to Christ’s body the church.  The church was created in every local situation where believers were baptized.  The very act of baptism associated them with one another in local churches.  Of course, in our day the pristine situation of the New Testament does not exist.  Still, however, it remains true that where a biblical missionary goes out from a local church into a pioneer situation and baptizes believers a local church is begun.  In our day because of the confusion and irregularities created by sin and doctrinal error, it may be necessary to have constituting services, covenants, constitutions, and confessions of the local church.  These things must not disguise or obscure the fact that baptism originally and truly introduced believers into the local church.

9–There is no proof that any believer was not baptized into the local church. The Ethiopian Eunuch is often cited as an example of someone who was not baptized into a local church.  His baptism is then made the precedent for overturning everything else that the New Testament teaches about the coincidence of baptism and church membership.  Several important objections must be made against this use of the passage.  First, if the Ethiopian Eunuch indeed was not baptized into a local church, it was only because no such church existed in Ethiopia.  This was clearly an exceptional circumstance that must not be made into a normative principle of the church or applied to situations where a local church does exist.  Second, it is not, in fact, clear that the Ethiopian Eunuch was not baptized into a local church.  This assumption on the part of interpreters is nowhere stated in the passage.  It is possible and even probable given the teaching of the rest of the New Testament that he was baptized into the membership of the church in Jerusalem or that he was the first member of the church in Ethiopia.  One thing is for sure this is no instance of happy-go-lucky evangelism where believers are made and then left to fend for themselves.  We cannot attribute such a practice to Philip or the church in Jerusalem.

10–The only alternative to saying that Christians are baptized into the visible and local church is to say that they are baptized into the invisible and universal church.  This is to misconceive the relation between the universal and local church. At bottom a failure to see the connection between baptism and church membership is rooted in a failure to see that the local church is the only appointed, visible expression of the universal church.  It is rooted in a misconception of the relation between the universal and local church.  In 1 Timothy 3:15 it is plainly the universal church that is described in the language “the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.”  Just as clearly when Timothy is instructed as to how he ought to conduct himself in that church in the ordering of its public meetings and the setting apart of its officers (1 Tim. 2:1-3:15) and in his own ministry (1 Tim. 4:1ff.), the local church at Ephesus is viewed as the visible expression of that church.  It is impossible, then, to argue that baptism joins one (visibly) to the universal church without seeing that at one and the same time this must make one a member of the local church where one is baptized.  So to argue is to misconceive the relation between what we call the universal and local church.

 

II. There is no Special Church Membership for children mentioned in the New Testament.

Assuming, then, that baptism must be into the membership of the church, a second observation is crucial. There is no distinction mentioned in the New Testament which allows for a different kind of membership for children as opposed to adults. To put this another way, there is no split-level church membership revealed in the New Testament. You may search the New Testament far and wide and not find such a distinction. There are simply church members. There are not adult church members and children church members. And this fact is reflected in our church’s constitution. There is no provision for a special and lesser church membership for children.

The conclusion is inevitable. If we baptize children, it must be into church membership. Baptizing children into church membership confers on them all the privileges and liabilities of church membership.

If children are baptized, they must be given all the privileges of church membership. They must be given the privilege of taking the Lord’s Supper. They must be given the privilege of participating and voting in church business meetings. This must include voting and participating in church discipline.

But children also become liable to the liabilities of church membership. This means the reality and possibility of church discipline. It may seem very sweet, nice, and cutesy to baptize that 7or 8 year old, but you are also placing on them the possibility of church discipline when they are 17 or 18. Is this something that it is right or reasonable to put upon an 7 or 8 year old child?

 

Section 3: A Proper Doctrine of Ecclesiastical Authority

Here is my thesis under this heading. The church in general and pastors in particular are the gatekeepers of baptism and church membership. You may have noticed if you have been attending here for any length of time that we vote on the applications for membership of all prospective. If they need to be baptized, that vote includes whether we should baptize them or not.

This practice is not simply a mere tradition. It is a biblical conviction based on the fact that membership in the church requires the consent of the church. According to the New Testament the consent of the church is necessary to exclude someone from the church. Logically, then, it follows that the consent of the church is necessary if someone is to be included in the church’s membership. Cf. Matthew 18:15-17; 1 Corinthians 5:1-5; 2 Corinthians 2:6-8.

But I think you will agree that where a church has elders, it is their responsibility to lead the church both in recognition of new members and in their being baptizing. This, it seems to me, is the necessary implication of their being the church’s elders, pastors, and overseers. Cf. especially 1 Thessalonians 5:12-14 and Hebrews 13:17.

Where am I going with this? Only a credible profession of faith provides the warrant baptism and church membership. Our Confession teaches what is surely the biblical doctrine of this when it says:

The members of these churches are saints by calling, visibly manifesting and evidencing (in and by their profession and walking) their obedience unto that call of Christ; and do willingly consent to walk together, according to the appointment of Christ; giving up themselves to the Lord and one to another, by the will of God, in professed subjection to the ordinances of the gospel.

The question is this. Who decides on the credibility of such a willing profession of faith? Well, the implication for our subject is that it is not the family or parents who decide who should be baptized. It is certainly not the person requesting baptism who makes that decision. It is the church led by its pastors who makes these decisions. The church and its pastors must judge the child’s profession to be credible. They may not simply take the word of parents for this. Of course, the perspective of the parents is one factor—but it cannot be the only or decisive factor.

This is why—by the way—I am against in most cases the more and more common practice of allowing fathers to baptize their own children. It sends an entirely wrong message about who is in charge of evaluating the credible profession of faith of an applicant for baptism and church membership.

 

Section 4: A Right Rejection of Cultural Assumptions

It is very hard to get outside of the cultural norms to which we are accustomed. These norms form the assumed and uncritically adopted context of our judgments about many things. In my view and opinion it is such an uncritically adopted context which bedevils and corrupts our approach to Scripture in the case of the baptism of children.

To see this, I want you all to turn to the key passage which speaks about how we should view teenagers as opposed to adults and children. I think the consideration of this passage will be instructive. I am sure you all know what it is. So please turn there.

What? You mean you cannot find it? You do know what passage I have in mind?

That is because there is no such passage. The Bible speaks of minor children in many passages. It also speaks of adults (men and women). There is, however, no passage which speaks of teenagers as an in-between category of people who are neither adults nor children. In the Bible you are either a child who cannot speak for himself; or you are an adult who can. In our society we think of children, teens, and adults. This is a way of thinking alien to the Bible.

Could the modern invention of “teenhood” be the source of many of our problems with regard to the issue of baptizing children? Is this the reason for our confusion? I think it is very possible.

Here is why. When someone says that baptism and church membership should be deferred till adulthood, we automatically of late teens or early 20’s. In this reaction there is the assumption that teens are not adults. We think of 16 when you can drive. We think of 18 when you can vote and be tried as an adult. But the Bible did not think in these terms when it spoke of adulthood.

In Jewish society adulthood became a reality around the ages of 12 for girls and 13 for boys. Now granted because of the way our society thinks and acts and delays adulthood, it may be true that many 12 and 13 year olds are still children. I am not denying that. I am only saying that our cultural assumptions may be very wrong about this issue of teenhood.

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