Why we baptized our babies

Part of my story is that I grew up Lutheran, baptized when I was 10 days old, then "fell away" in a sense my freshman year of college, "got saved" shortly thereafter, and then spent several years as a baptist/revivalist Christian. In many ways, I resented the liturgical church of my upbringing, including the "religious" practice of baptising babies. I saw it as an obstacle to the gospel, because someone who has already been baptized might be reluctant to have an "accept Jesus into my heart" experience later in life. If a person's salvation depends on whether or not they choose to have this conversion experience and allow Jesus to save them, then this is a very real concern.

However, several years ago I began to study the doctrine of the Reformed tradition, starting with a stroll through the Westminster Confession of Faith. The WCF, and the scriptures that support its theology, really opened my eyes and made the Bible make sense in a unified, God-centered way that they hadn't before. So, I became a Reformed Baptist, which has been a surprisingly popular position within Reformed circles, since the Reformation.

And then my wife and I had kids. Suddenly, the debate on infant baptism wasn't an academic one. After much deliberation, we decided to have our children baptized over Labor Day this year. The following is an explanation of how this decision came about, and the reasons that support it. It was initially penned as an explanation to extended family members that would disagree with us on this point of doctrine. The over-arching goal of this piece is to explain our position, not to tell everyone else they are wrong. The intent isn't to divide, but rather to hopefully facilitate understanding between camps who disagree on this point that tends to be somewhat of a hot button issue.

This piece was originally a letter/e-mail, but I've tried to go through and revise and adapt it for this environment. The attachment I refer to can be found here. Anyway, here it is…

…this subject is obviously one that requires a rather lengthy discussion for us to explain exactly what we are thinking and why we have decided to have our children baptized.

One of the reasons that this discussion is a lengthy one is that it doesn't start and end on the subject of baptism. In truth, a person's understanding of the very nature of salvation, both theologically and experientially, greatly impacts their presuppositions concerning baptism. I fear that our differences in understanding stretch beyond the borders of the infant- or believer-baptism debate.

To clarify, a baptistic understanding of salvation would typically be that a person becomes convicted of their sin (by the Holy Spirit, through the Word), repents and turns from it, and confesses Christ Jesus is Lord. Typically, this manifests itself in some sort of personal and experiential commitment, usually accompanied by the "Sinner's Prayer" to "ask Jesus into my heart," often accompanied by a walk down an aisle or some other such public profession.

After this profession, at some point the new convert is expected to be baptized as a further, visible sign of the salvation they have now experienced. The convert is typically interviewed by some sort of governing body to determine the validity of their claim of salvation. Once this authority has ruled, the new convert is baptized.

Unfortunately, that's not the end of the story. Baptized believers, in the baptistic sense, can and do "fall away" from the faith along their way, leaving the baptist with three choices. The first option is that the "fallen brother" has lost his salvation. If he was free to choose Christ, he's free to abandon his faith and become "unsaved." The second option is that he never was saved in the first place. It seemed like he was, but the evidence of his life shows that he really isn't/wasn't saved at all. In this scenario, the church would have to own up to baptizing non-believers, albeit unintentionally. The final option is that this person is still saved, regardless of the abundance of "bad fruit" showing itself in their lives. In this paradigm, the person can't lose their faith, no matter what they do or how hard they try. In sort of a "Hotel California" (you can check in any time you like, but you can never leave…) way, a person can choose to become a Christian and make a commitment to Christ, but after that their free will is gone. They "have to" be saved, no matter what. The basis for this understanding of once-saved, always-saved relies on the validity of the confession/crisis experience/commitment to Christ that the person (or interested onlookers) can look back on as proof of that person's salvation. "I know he's still saved because I was there at summer camp when he walked forward and gave his life to Christ," becomes the guarantee of this person's salvation.

Now, contrast this understanding of salvation with a more Reformed/covenantal doctrine of salvation. In this paradigm, it is God that makes Christians, according to his will rather than the will or decision of his people. By nature, man is the enemy of God, dead in his sins, and completely unwilling (if not unable) to choose God in any way shape or form. Think of it this way; put a lion and a cow in a room full of hay. The cow will eat the hay, and the lion will eat the cow! The lion is free to eat the hay if he wants to, but he NEVER WILL because he's a lion by nature, and lions don't eat hay. In the same way, a spiritually dead man will NEVER choose God no matter how free he is to do so, because he is a slave to sin and to his evil, fallen nature.

But, praise God that he doesn't abandon us to the grave. Just like Lazarus, we are stone-cold dead, laying in our spiritual tomb until Jesus himself effectually calls us to come out of the darkness. When we hear and recognize our Savior's voice, we are quickened and regenerated in a way that completely changes who and what we are. Though we loved the darkness and hated the light when we were dead in our sins, now we hear Jesus' voice and are drawn to him. Nobody can be saved unless he is drawn to Christ, and nobody will refuse Christ when Christ calls to him.

Salvation does not depend on some sort of altar-call experience, nor is it intrinsically tied to an experiential decision of the human will. It starts and ends with the will of God.

If this is the case, how can we know that a man is saved? You know a tree by the fruit it produces, and in this same way you can know the type of man a person is. Works do not lead to salvation in any way, shape, or form. Yet, they are inextricably linked together in such a way that both Paul and James understood them to both be necessary for salvation. James says, "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?" James is referring to a counterfeit faith, a faith in name only. Such a faith is of no value, and I would venture to say it is quite dangerous. A man can believe himself to be saved based on a commitment or profession he made decades before, but if his life is completely devoid of any spiritual fruit he should have every reason to believe that he is just as damned as Judas, or even the Devil himself.

We do not see the wind, nor do we know from where it comes or where it goes. Yet, we can see (as Nebraskans can attest) the powerful and obvious results of its workings. In the same way, the Holy Spirit comes and goes as he pleases, yet we can see the results of his work. A man who has been regenerated by the Holy Spirit WILL produce much fruit. This fruit will usually include a verbalized, articulated confessional faith, according to the intellect and maturity of the believer. However, it is neither the articulation nor the awareness of this faith that makes it real. It simply adds to the pile of evidence as we "make our calling and election sure," according to Peter's admonition to us. The works (including a confession of faith) that true faith produces are proof to us of what God has already done (and is still doing), but they do not in and of themselves save us. They merely serve to let us know what kind of tree we are, so to speak.

So, I believe that we could both agree with the once-saved/always-saved position. However, it is our understanding of "saved" that shapes our understanding of what this doctrine means.

The baptist maintains that a man is saved because of his confessional commitment, and that settles it once and for all. I would agree that once a person is saved they will persevere (and be preserved by God) in their faith, ultimately to their salvation. However, I would find it rather presumptuous to declare that every single person that has walked an aisle, asked Jesus into their heart, or dedicated their lives to Christ is truly saved beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Thus, I believe that true believers, once saved, are always saved. It is the solemn responsibility of each believer to constantly subject their lives to a thorough and ongoing introspective evaluation of their own spiritual state. He should not think himself a believer simply because of some point in time experience, but according to the balance of fruit in his life. Certainly there will be differing amounts of this fruit, as we have seen historically throughout the church, but a "good tree" will reveal itself according to its fruit. An apple tree may bear a small crop of apples, but its fruit still proves what sort of tree it is.

So, what does this all have to do with infant baptism? I believe that the greatest fear for baptists concerning infant baptism is that baptized children will be lulled into a false sense of security by the baptism they received as children. The thinking goes that a person will have no reason to "come to Jesus" through a conversionary experience if they have already "been saved" through baptism. Thus, they will have assurance of a "false" salvation, and their parents will withhold the gospel from them because they have no need of it.

Let me join with my baptistic brothers in saying that any parent who does not preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to his children is gravely in sin and would be better off if a large stone were to be tied around his neck and himself cast into a large body of water.

As I stated before, our assurance of salvation is dependent on our continued and sustained walking in faith before the Lord. If we were to preach that we all must have an event to look back on for proof of our salvation, then perhaps baptism would be an easy substitute for an altar call or any other individual profession of faith. In such a case some, even many, baptized children would have a false assurance of their own salvation. Such an assurance could lead to a reckless antinomian lifestyle, eventually resulting in their eternal damnation.

In stark contrast to this assertion, I would maintain that we all have good reason to continually inspect our lives and our faith, and those of our children whether baptized or not. The proclamation of the gospel should be a daily (hourly?) event in our homes, for who among us is saved by grace, but not also sustained by it? Our children are in need of the gospel just as severely as we are. However, this doesn't mean that we should neglect or disrespect the faith of our children, no matter how immature or inarticulated it may be.

The promises of God extend both to believers and their children. I have attached an article that goes into this idea in great depth. For our purposes, I will simply state that I believe that we have clear, biblical evidence that the promises of God extend to our children, even to their salvation by faith.

An acorn and an oak tree are radically different in size, complexity, and maturity, but they are of the same substance. They are on the same "essential" continuum, though at opposite ends. In the same way, our children can and do have faith that is ontologically comparable to ours, though undeveloped and immature as an acorn is to a mature oak. They may not have the ability to articulate their beliefs, or even to systematically understand biblical doctrine. As infants, they lack the intellectual ability to understand their sinfulness, repent of it, and trust in Jesus Christ for their salvation. And yet, are they completely incapable of faith???

My children have a vibrant, all-encompassing, faith-based relationship with me. I feed them. I shelter them. I discipline them. I nurture them. They are entirely dependent on me and the sustenance I provide for them. They love me and I love them. I am their father and they are my children. If our relationship were to be based on their faith and dependence on me (rather than pure biological succession), I am confident that they would be "Wittmanns by faith," and in spades!

And yet, Elsie doesn't know my name or the date when she was born. Pete doesn't know what my favorite song is, or where I work. Neither of them can explain why I provide for them in the way that I do, or doctrinally articulate their utter dependence on me. Peter is a brilliant child, but he is intellectually incapable of understanding all of the relational connections and nuances that bind us together as a family. He does not have the ability to explain just how dependent he is on my for nearly every facet of his existence. Does that make him any less my son? Of course not, because our relationship is not defined by our ability to express the complexities of it. No, our relationship is defined by who we are. I am his father, and he is my son. He is naturally dependent on me in all of the ways that a son depends on his father.

How is this ability to be dependent any different than the faith Jesus' referred to when he warned us to become "like these" in order to be fit for the Kingdom of Heaven? Isn't the essence of our faith as adults that we are completely dependent on the love and mercy of God the Father, available to us through his Son, Jesus Christ, as applied by his Holy Spirit? It is this dependence, not the articulation or understanding of it, that is the basis of our own salvation. If our children are capable of dependence on an earthly father, is it absurd to think that they could also depend on God if he calls them his own? Of course we expect this dependence-faith to grow and mature as the child's intellect and understanding grow. It would be just as foolish to assume that a child will never profess faith in Christ, or an understanding of his sin, and so forth. Yet, it will be at this point that he can look back and remember his baptism, when God said, "This one belongs to me!" just as he did when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan.

So, we baptize our children to acknowledge that they belong to the Covenant people of God. We trust his promises to us and our children, that he will be our God and we will be his people. We believe the Bible when it says, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household" (acts 16:31). We do not blindly or arbitrarily assume that our children are "saved" in a once-saved/always-saved sense, but we believe that salvation of the children of believers is normative, because God has said so, that children born to believing parents and raised within the Covenant community will have faith in God just as we ourselves do, according to their level of maturity.

We also realize that some of these same children will fall away (apostatize) at some point, just as many Israelites forsook their God. By this, they proved that they had been outwardly circumcised, but they did not possess "circumcised hearts." Though such apostasy is not normative, it should not be ignored if and when it occurs. Baptism should not be considered incontrovertible proof of our child's salvation, especially in light of an abundance of "bad fruit" in that child's life. We should be diligent to preach the gospel continually to all our children, regardless of the fruit we see in their lives.

So, what is the point of baptizing an infant child of a believer? Essentially, it is a ritual by which God declares, "This one is MINE!" and we respond by agreeing with him. This bi-directional understanding of the sacraments is essential. We say something to God, but he also says (and does) something to us. This is why the baptism of Jesus makes sense. He was without sin, so it could not have been a baptism of repentance. Rather, his baptism was his way of subjecting himself to God's authority, and in this ritual God boomed from a cloud, "This one is MINE!" This is also why we come to the Lord's table for communion; we declare that we are his people, and Jesus declares through his Word that he agrees, that we belong to him and are in fellowship with him. Baptism does not by necessity impart salvation to an otherwise unsaved being any more than communion guarantees fellowship with Christ to an unbelieving man, and yet in some way it does serve as a sign and a seal of the spiritual reality that this child does belong to God, as a member of one of God's children's household.

Even at this great length, this discussion may not be sufficient. I would encourage you to read the attachment for a more thorough explanation of the covenantal baptism position.

Above all else, please know that this difference in opinion does not cause us to love or respect those who disagree with us any less. We are bound to be obedient to the Truth as it has been revealed to us, and baptizing our children is an important step of obedience for Amanda and I. Yet, we readily acknowledge that it is possible that we could be wrong on this one. If so, we trust that God's grace is sufficient for us in our weakness and ignorance.

Please don't hesitate to let me know if you have any questions about any of this. I also have tons of other resources I can forward your way if you're interested.

Thanks,
Mike