Baptism

John Calvin (1509-1564)

Now, everyone may see that infant baptism was by no means fashioned by man, resting as it does on such firm approbation of Scripture. Nor is their silly objection plausible that there is no evidence of a single infant’s ever being baptized by the hands of the apostles! For even if this is not expressly related by the Evangelists, still, because infants are not excluded when mention is made of a family’s being baptized, who in his senses can reason from this that they were not baptized? If such arguments were valid, women should similarly be barred from the Lord’s Supper, since we do not read that they were admitted to it in the apostolic age (Acts 16:15, 32); but here we are content with the rule of faith. For when we weight what the institution of the Supper implies, it is also easy to judge from this to whom the use of it ought to be granted. We observe this also in baptism. Indeed, when we pay attention to the purpose for which it was instituted, we clearly see that it is just as appropriate to infants as to older persons. For this reason, infants cannot be deprived of it without open violation of the will of God, its author. The opponents of infant baptism spread among the simple folk the notion that many years passed after Christ’s resurrection during which infant baptism was unknown. In this they are most shamefully untruthful. For indeed, there is no writer, however ancient, who does not regard its origin in the apostolic age as a certainty.

(From: “Institutes of the Christian Religion”)

John Flavel (1628-1691)

Q. 1. What is the external part of baptism?

A. It is pure unmixed water; Heb. x. 22. And our bodies washed with pure water. And therefore it is a vile practice of Papists, to add oil, salt, and spittle, to water in baptism.

Q. 2. What doth water in baptism signify?

A. It signifies the blood of Christ; Rev. i. 5. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.

Q. 3. What is the first resemblance it hath to Christ’s blood?

A. In the freeness of it to all, it represents the unpurchased blood of Christ; Isa. lv. 1. Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk, without money, and without price.

Q. 4. What is the second resemblance to Christ’s blood?

A. It resembles it in its refreshing quality; water refresheth the thirsty, so doth Christ’s blood; John vi. 35. He that believeth on me shall never thirst.

Q. 5. What is the third resemblance it hath to Christ’s blood?

A. The cleansing property of water shews the purifying virtue of Christ’s blood; Heb. ix. 14. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God?

Q. 6. What is the fourth resemblance it hath to Christ’s blood?

A. It resembles it in the necessity of it: For as the body cannot live without water, so neither can the soul without Christ’s blood; Heb. ix. 23. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

Q. 7. What is the fifth resemblance of water to the blood of Christ?

A. As water neither refresheth nor purifies the body without application; so neither doth Christ’s blood refresh or purify the soul till applied; 1 Cor. i. 30. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.

Q. 8. Is it necessary to plunge the whole body under water, in baptizing every person?

A. The word [baptize] signifying as well to wash, as to plunge; a person may be truly baptized, that is not plunged. And we cannot think by circumstance of time and place, that the jailor, in the night, was carried to a river out of the city; Acts xvi. 33. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes, and was baptized, he and all his straightway.

Q. 9. But is it not said, John iii. 23. That John also was baptizing in Enon, near to Salim, because there was much water there; and they came and were baptized?

A. The word signifies many waters, that is, springs of waters there; which are known by travellers to be small, not capable of plunging into.

Q. 10. What are the benefits accruing to us by baptism?

A. The benefits are twofold: some external, called the fatness of the olive-tree; i. e. ordinances, and visible membership; Rom. xi. 17. And thou being a wild olive-tree, wert graffed in amongst them, and with them partakers of the root and fatness of the olive-tree. And some spiritual and saving; 1 Pet. iii. 21. The like figure whereunto, even baptism, doth also now save us, (not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Q. 11. What engagements are laid on the baptized?

A. They are engaged to be the Lord’s people, and to walk suitably to that engagement; Rom. vi. 4, 5. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if w have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we should be also in the likeness of his resurrection.

Q. 12. Doth baptism regenerate men, and confer saving grace?

A. No, it doth not, in its own virtue, convey grace, no more than the Lord’s supper; but the Spirit of God is the author of grace, and works it as he pleases, before or after baptism.

(From: “An Exposition of the Assembly’s Catechism”)

Samuel Miller (1769-1850)

The baptism of the three thousand converts made by the instrumentality of Peter’s preaching, on the day of Pentecost, is the first remarkable instance of Christian baptism which occurs in the New Testament history. Christ had promised, before he left his disciples, that he would send to them his Holy Spirit, and the favourite expression by which he was accustomed to designate this gift, was that he would pour out the Holy Spirit upon them. Accordingly, in ten days after his ascension to heaven, he was pleased, in a most extraordinary manner, to fulfil his promise. The Spirit was poured out with a power unknown before. And, what is remarkable, the apostle Peter assures the assembled multitude, that what they then witnessed was a fulfilment of the prediction by the prophet Joel, that the Holy Spirit should be imparted in a manner prefigured by the term pouring out, or affusion. Three thousand were converted under the overwhelming impression of divine truth, dispenses in a single sermon; and were all baptized, and “added to the church” in a single day. From the short account given of this wonderful transaction, we gather, that the multitude on whom this impression was made, was convened in some part of the temple. They seem to have come together about the third hour of the day, that is, nine o’clock in the morning, according to the Jewish mode of computing time. At least, when Peter rose to commence his sermon, that was the hour. Besides the discourse of which we have a sketch in the chapter containing the account, we are told he exhorted and testified with many other words. All these services, together with receiving the confession of three thousand converts, must unavoidably have consumed several hours; leaving only four or five hours, at the utmost, for baptizing the whole number. But they were all baptized that same day. We read nothing, however, of the apostles taking the converts away from “Solomon’s Porch,” or wherever else they were assembled, to any river or stream for the sake of baptizing them. Indeed, at that season of the year, there was no river or brook in the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem, which would admit of immersing a human being. Besides, is it likely that this great multitude, most of whom were probably strangers in Jerusalem, could have been furnished with such a change of raiment as health and decorum required; or that they could have been baptized without clothing altogether; or remained on the ground, through the public exercises, in their wet clothes? Surely all these suppositions are so utterly improbable that they may be confidently rejected. But, above all, was it physically possible, supposing all the apostles to have officiated in the administration of this ordinance, for twelve men to have immersed three thousand persons in four or five hours; which we have seen must have been the case, if, as is evident, the preaching, the examination of candidates, and the baptizing of the whole number took place after nine o’clock in the forenoon? Those who have witnessed a series of baptisms by immersion know how arduous and exhausting is the bodily effort which it requires. To immerse a single person, with due decorum and solemnity, will undoubtedly require from five to six minutes. Of course, to immerse one hundred, would consume, at this rate, between nine and ten hours. Now, even if so much time could possibly be assigned to this part of the work, on the same day, which is plainly inadmissible, can we suppose that the twelve apostles stood, for nine or ten hours, themselves, in the water, constantly engaged in a series of efforts among the most severe and exhausting to human strength that can well be undertaken? To imagine this, would be among the most improbable, not to say extravagant imaginations that could be formed on such a subject. Yet even this supposition, unreasonable as it is, falls far short of providing for even one half of the requisite number. The man, therefore, who can believe that the three thousand on the day of Pentecost were baptized by immersion, must have great faith, and a wonderful facility in accommodating his belief to his wishes.

(From: “Infant Baptism Scriptural and Reasonable: and Baptism by Sprinkling or Affusion, the most Suitable and Edifying Mode”)

John Owen (1616-1683)

The apostle, Rom. vi. 3-5, is dehorting [dissuading] from sin, exhorting to holiness and new obedience, and gives this argument from the necessity of it and our ability for it,–both taken from our initiation into the virtue of the death and life of Christ, expressed in our baptism,–that by virtue of the death and burial of Christ we should be dead unto sin, sin being slain thereby, and by virtue of the resurrection of Christ we should be quickened unto newness of life; as Peter declares, 1 Pet. iii. 21. Our being “buried with him,” and our being “planted together in the likeness of his death” and “in the likeness of his resurrection,” Rom. vi. 4, 5, is the same with “our old man being crucified with him,” and the “destroying of the body of sin,” verse 6, and our being raised from the dead with him; which is all that is intended in the place.

There is not one word nor one expression that mentions any resemblance between dipping under water and the death and burial of Christ, nor one word that mentions a resemblance between our rising out of the water and the resurrection of Christ. Our being “buried with him by baptism into death,” verse 4, is our being “planted together in the likeness of his death,” verse 5. Our being “planted together in the likeness of his death” is not our being dipped under water, but “the crucifying of the old man,” verse 6. Our being “raised up with Christ from the dead” is not our rising from under the water, but our “walking in newness of life,” verse 4, by virtue of the resurrection of Christ, 1 Pet. iii. 21.

That baptism is not a sign of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, is clear from hence, because an instituted sign is a sign of gospel grace participated, or to be participated. If dipping be a sign of the burial of Christ, it is not a sign of a gospel grace participated; for it may be where there is none, nor any exhibited.

For the major: If all gospel ordinances are signs and expressions of the communication of the grace of Christ, then baptism is so; but this is the end of all gospel ordinances, or else they have some other end, or are vain and empty shows.

The same individual sign cannot be instituted to signify things of several natures; but the outward burial of Christ, and a participation of the virtue of Christ’s death and burial, are things of a diverse nature, and therefore are not signified by one sign.

That interpretation which would enervate the apostle’s argument and design, our comfort and duty, is not to be admitted; but this interpretation, that baptism is mentioned here as the sign of Christ’s burial, would enervate the apostle’s argument and design, our comfort, and duty: and therefore it is not to be admitted.

The minor is thus proved: The argument and design of the apostle, as was before declared, is to exhort and encourage unto mortification of sin and new obedience, by virtue of power received from the death and life of Christ, whereof a pledge is given us in our baptism. But this is taken away by this interpretation; for we may be so buried with Christ and planted into the death of Christ by dipping, and yet have no power derived from Christ for the crucifying of sin and for the quickening of us to obedience.

(From: Works)

Alexander S. Paterson (1805-1828)

With respect to the mode or manner of administration, there are various opinions,–whether it ought to be performed by plunging or dipping, or by pouring or sprinkling. But without entering into the various arguments on both sides, we shall only make the following remarks:–When we consider the way in which the thing signified by baptism is expressed (Tit. iii. 5, 6; Heb. x. 22), and that the pouring out of the Holy Spirit is expressly called baptism (Acts x. 44, 45, compared with chap. xi. 15, 16); when we consider the divers washings of which the apostle speaks in Heb. ix. 10; or, as it is in the original, divers baptisms; referring probably to the various liquids which were used,–viz., water, and oil, and blood, into which it is not very likely that the people and various things were plunged; and that Christ speaks of a baptism of blood, with which he was to be baptized; when we consider also the instances of the administration of this ordinance by the apostles (Acts ii., where we read of 3000 being baptized in one day); the baptism of the jailor and his family, and of the apostle Paul (Acts xvi. and ix. 18); the one in prison, and the other in a private house, where it is probable that the administrators would not have brought them forth to the nearest water–the one at midnight, which was dangerous, and the other in a weak state in which he then was, after three days’ fasting (Acts x. 47, 48); and, moreover, when we consider, that the yoke of Christ is easy and his burden light; and that his religion is adapted for all parts of the world–the coldest as well as the hottest; and for all constitutions–the weakest as well as the strongest; when we consider all these things, we must conclude, that baptism may be administered by sprinkling as well as by plunging,–nay, that sprinkling or pouring is most agreeable to the general tenor of Scripture.

(From: “A Concise System of Theology on the Basis of the Shorter Catechism”)

Robert Shaw (1795-1863)

The objections usually brought forward against the warrantableness of infant baptism, are either frivolous in themselves, or proceed from mistaken views of the ordinance. Is it urged, that the in the New Testament we have no express injunction to baptize the infants of professing Christians? This, we reply, is precisely what might have been expected, because the Church-membership of the children of God’s professing people was fully established under the Old Testament, and their admission by the rite of circumcision was a privilege well known, and universally extended to them; so that, unless it had been designed to abridge the privileges of the children of believing parents under the New Testament, there was no occasion for any explicit injunction to baptize their children. But no hint is given in the New Testament that the privilege of infants, which had been so long enjoyed under the former dispensation, was to be withdrawn; and as the privilege is not revoked, it must be continued. Is it asked, What benefit can infants derive from baptism? With equal propriety, we reply, it might have been asked, What benefit can a child, eight days old, derive from circumcision? To put such a question is almost impious, because it implies an impeachment of the wisdom of God. He appointed circumcision to be administered to infants under the Old Testament; and with equal propriety is baptism of administered to them under the New Testament. Is it objected, that we have no express example of the baptism of infants under the New Testament? All the cases of baptism recorded in the New Testament, we reply, are cases in which it was administered to converts from Judaism or Paganism to Christianity; and if we do not find it explicitly stated, that any infant born of Christian parents was baptized, as little do we find any example of those who were born of Christian parents being baptized in adult age. This entirely accords with our practice at the present day. We baptize adult converts from among Jews or Heathens’ and as the apostles baptized “households” on the faith of their domestic heads, we also consider ourselves warranted to baptize the children of professing Christians. But those who defer the baptism of the children of professing Christians until they arrive at adult age, have no precedent or example for their practice; for, though the Book of the Acts contains the history of the Church for upwards of thirty years, in which time the children of those who were first baptized by the apostles must have reached maturity, yet we have no record of the baptism of a single individual born of Christian parents. From this silence, we justly infer that they must have been baptized in their infancy; and we defy the advocates of adult baptism to adduce a single scriptural example of their practice. Is it urged, that infants cannot profess their faith in Christ? We reply, that when faith, or the profession of it, is spoken of as a prerequisite to baptism, it is always supposed that the subjects of it are capable of instruction; and that if this proved anything, it would prove too much; for this objection, if valid against infant baptism, must also be valid against infant salvation, since the Scripture connects faith and the profession of it, in the case of adults, with the one as well as the other.

(From: “An Exposition of the Confession of Faith”)

John Willison (1680-1750)

Q. Have infants a right to baptism?

A. Yes; the infants of those who are believers or members of the visible church have a right to baptism, but not others.

Q. How do you instruct their right to baptism?

A. Because the infants of believing parents are within the covenant, as well as the parents themselves; so God told Abraham in the covenant he made with him, and did thereupon establish and declare the right of his infant-seed to the initiatory seal of the covenant, Gen. xvii. 7, 10, “I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And every man-child among you shall be circumcised.” Now, Abraham’s covenant being the covenant of grace, of which Christ is the Mediator; and believers now being Abraham’s children by faith, and heirs of the same covenant with him, which is everlasting, and its promises and privileges the same now as of old, although its seals be changed: wherefore the infant-seed of believers now have the right to baptism that Abraham’s seed of old had to circumcision, which was the same in substance with it. And this right of succession we find expressly declared by the apostle Peter, Acts ii. 38, 39, “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, for the promise is unto you, and to your children.” And hence the apostle Paul calls the children of believers now holy, 1 Cor. vii. 14, that is, federally holy, as the Jews were called a holy nation, being by circumcision instated within the covenant, solemnly dedicated to the Lord, and made visible church-members, as our infants are by baptism.

Q. How doth it appear that baptism is come in the place of circumcision?

A. It is evident from Col. ii. 11, 12. Besides, it is plain that both of them represent the pollution of our nature, and the way of our purification, by the shedding of Christ’s blood.

Q. What further warrant have you from scripture for infant baptism?

A. 1. Christ commanded his apostles, Mat. xxviii. 19, to go disciple and baptize all nations, of which infants are a considerable part. There was no need to mention them there expressly, seeing their privilege was settled for many ages before by circumcision: though soon after we are told that their right continued as formerly, Acts ii. 38, 39. And indeed it were most unreasonable to think that their condition should be worse by Christ’s incarnation than it was before. 2. We are assured that the privilege of the Gentiles now is as large as that of the Jews was, they being all one in Christ, Rom. iii. 29; x. 12; Gal. iii. 14, 28. 3. We are told, Rom. xi. that the Jews shall be grafted again into their own olive tree, as they were broken off. From which it is easy to infer, that their seed, which were broken of with them, shall be grafted in with them as before. 4. The scriptures declare infants to be capable of the divine blessings of pardon, of the Spirit, of faith, of grace, and of glory; upon which account Christ kindly invites and takes them into his arms. See Isa. xliv. 3; lxv. 23; Jer. i. 5; Mat. xviii. 6; Mark x. 14, 16; Luke i. 15. And therefore the sign and seal of these blessings must also pertain to them. 5. We read of the apostles baptizing whole households together, and including the infants therein, Acts xvi. 15, 33; 1 Cor. i. 16. And in this they followed the example of the Jews, who circumcised all the proselytes that came over to them, and their children also. And, after the example of the apostles, it is well known the ancient church baptized the infants of the Christian parents.

Q. Do not we read of the apostles teaching, and of persons professing their faith, before they were baptized?

A. Yes; but these were only the adult or aged without the visible church, who were first to be won to the Christian faith before they or their children might be baptized. But infants, who are not capable of being taught, or of professing their faith, are to be deemed as parts of their parents, and to be judged of by them till they come to the use of reason; so that if parents be holy, and among the blessed of the Lord, their infant offspring are to be deemed so with them, according to Rom. xi. 16; Isa. lxv. 23. In the covenant made with Abraham and his seed, of which circumcision was the seal, and they all partook, God said not to the infants, Gen. xvii. 1, “Walk before me, and be thou perfect.”

(From: “An Example of Plain Catechising on the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism”)