Should Infants Be Baptized?

For centuries, the validity of infant baptism has been a hotly contested theological issue within the Church. Today, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans, and various other Christian traditions practice infant baptism. However, Anabaptists, Baptists, and various other Protestant groups reject the practice, arguing that only those who are old enough to make a decision to follow Jesus and to make a profession of Christian faith should be baptized; instead of infant baptism, these denominations practice “believer’s baptism.” 

Infant Baptism and the New Testament

The major reason why infant baptism has remained a controversial theological issue for so long is that Scripture never explicitly addresses the topic. The New Testament does not forbid the practice of infant baptism. On the other hand, the New Testament also never instructs Christians to baptize their infants, nor does it mention any early Christian doing so. 

There are two passages in the book of Acts which some proponents of infant baptism point to as cases where Scripture does mention infant baptism. When the apostle Paul converted Lydia, “she and the members of her household were baptized” (Acts 16:15). Later, the jailer of Paul and Silas accepted the gospel, “then immediately he and all his household were baptized” (Acts 16:33). Presumably, these converts’ households would have included children. Therefore, some argue, these passages are references to infant baptism. 

However, since the text does not tell us whether these converts actually had infants in their households or not, we cannot just assume that they did. It is reasonable to suppose that their households included children. However, the baptism of a child who is old enough to speak for themself is very different from the baptism of an infant, who has no beliefs and cannot speak or make conscious decisions. There is really no good reason to assume that these passages in Acts about entire households being baptized are references to infant baptism. The book of Acts, like the rest of the New Testament, is silent on the topic.

The silence of the New Testament on the subject of infant baptism can be interpreted in different ways. Proponents of infant baptism argue that the New Testament does not explicitly mention infant baptism only because it was addressed to the first generation of believers, who converted as adults. Furthermore, they argue that this first generation of believers would have taken it for granted that they would baptize their babies. During the Old Testament, babies were circumcised as a sign that they were members of God’s covenant people. So, they argue, early Jewish Christians would have taken for granted that, with the inauguration of the New Covenant, their babies would be baptized as a sign that they were members of God’s covenant people; if there were a sudden change in whether babies could be accepted into God’s covenant people, then surely there would be mention of this somewhere in the New Testament.

The problem with this argument is that, while there are some similarities between circumcision and baptism, they are not exactly parallel. There is much discussion of both the topic of circumcision and the topic of baptism in the New Testament, and it is significant that no NT author speaks of them as parallel or as typologically related. Instead, the apostle Peter draws a symbolic connection between the waters of Noah’s flood and the waters of baptism (1 Pet 3:20-21). 

While there is continuity between God’s covenant people in the Old and New Testaments, there is significant discontinuity as well. One of the main points of discontinuity is that, in the Old Testament, God’s covenant people were ethnically and nationally defined, while in the New Testament, God’s covenant people are defined as a voluntary community of disciples of Jesus the Messiah. When God’s covenant people were ethnically and nationally defined, it made sense that every male Israelite child would be circumcised as a sign that they were a member of God’s covenant people. However, now that God’s covenant people are defined as a voluntary community of disciples, does it really make sense that every child of Christian parents would be baptized, before they have the ability to make a decision to follow Jesus? This significant point of discontinuity between how God’s covenant people are defined in the Old and New Testaments makes the argument for infant baptism based on a parallel between circumcision and baptism highly dubious.

Thus, if anything, the silence of the New Testament on the topic of infant baptism points in the direction of infant baptism not being legitimate. Consistently, the New Testament closely connects baptism with faith and discipleship. Since infants have no beliefs and are unable to make a decision to become a disciple of Jesus, it goes without saying that infants should not be baptized. This seems to be the most reasonable interpretation of why the New Testament never explicitly mentions infant baptism.

Infant Baptism and Church History

As far as I can tell, the first recorded mention of infant baptism is made by the Church father Tertullian, writing in the late second or early third century: “the delay of baptism is preferable; principally, however, in the case of little children. . . let them become Christians when they have become able to know Christ.”^[1]Tertullian, On Baptism.XVIII This tells us that, already by the end of the second century, some Christians were baptizing their infants. It is also significant that, though Tertullian advises against infant baptism, he does not say that it is completely illegitimate and that those baptized as infants should get rebaptized. Rather, Tertullian understands baptism as a serious commitment to devote the rest of one’s life to serving and obeying Jesus, and considers infant baptism problematic because the child has not yet come to the point where they are able to make such a serious decision for themself. 

In the centuries following Tertullian, infant baptism gradually became more and more prevalent in the Church, until, during the Middle Ages, it became universally practiced by Christian parents. For centuries, infant baptism was universally practiced and virtually unchallenged, until, during the Protestant Reformation, some Protestants rejected the practice in favor of believer’s baptism. Since these Protestants baptized adults who had already been baptized as infants, they were called anabaptists, meaning “rebaptizers,” by their opponents. However, from their perspective, infant baptism was illegitimate, and so they were not actually rebaptizing people, but legitimately baptizing people for the first time. Since the time of the Reformation, various other Protestant groups and denominations have joined the Anabaptists in rejecting infant baptism in favor of believer’s baptism, and the legitimacy of infant baptism remains a hotly contested issue within Protestantism today.

Based on the teachings of the New Testament regarding baptism, it does seem relatively clear that the practice of believer’s baptism is better than the practice of infant baptism. However, church history presents us with a problem with saying that infant baptism is completely illegitimate and that everyone baptized as an infant needs to be baptized again in order to become a real Christian. If infant baptism is completely illegitimate, then we would have to say that, during the many centuries of the Middle Ages, there were no real Christians at all, until the Anabaptists came during the Reformation to restart the Church again. Since Jesus promised that His Church would never fall (Matt 16:18), this is impossible and absurd. We must believe that, however corrupt and compromised the Church of the Middle Ages was, it was still a real Church with real Christians in it, Christians who were baptized as infants. Thus, it is unreasonable to claim that infant baptism is completely illegitimate.

According to the New Testament, both faith in Jesus and baptism are essential to genuine Christian conversion. It is best if both of these elements come together in believer’s baptism. However, for someone who is baptized as an infant, and then later puts faith in Jesus, both elements of Christian conversion are still there, even if the two elements are separated by a long period of time. Just being baptized as an infant does not make someone a Christian. At some point, they need to “own” their baptism by making a conscious decision to follow Jesus in order to truly be a Christian. This seems to be implicitly recognized by Christian traditions that practice infant baptism, and then confirmation when a young Christian comes of age. So, although believer’s baptism is the best and most biblically faithful church practice, disciples of Jesus who were baptized as infants should still be recognized as true Christians, as long as they have truly made a decision for themselves to completely give their lives to Jesus.