DISCUSSIONS WITH A BAPTIST ON BAPTISM

“Let the Little Children Come Unto Me, For Such is the Kingdom of Heaven” - Jesus Christ in Matthew 19:14

Dear Friend, 

Christ is in our midst! 

As we discuss viewpoints, it is apparent that the evangelical exclusion of families and children from baptism fails to understand the sacrament as acting upon you, from the outside, as a covenantal act, whereby God Himself places His seal upon His people. Baptism is not merely the fruit of an individual’s choice, but the means by which we are grafted into the people of God. St. Paul says plainly: “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13). It is a corporate sacrament, not a private initiation rite. 

I was raised by Baptists who doubled down very hard on excluding little children from baptism. They believed in an “age of accountability”, a doctrine found nowhere in Scripture, agonized about baptizing the mentally handicapped, since they “could not fully understand or repent,” and insisted that salvation required a “saving knowledge of the Lord,” as though knowledge itself could save. This betrays the gnostic impulse at the core of their system, where intellectual apprehension is believed to be the mechanism for salvation, exalted above the supernatural action of God in His mysteries. 

I deeply love my Baptist family, and I understand their worldview from the inside out, having completed two theology degrees in Baptist institutions. Yet, I find this view completely lacking in explanatory power and in historical continuity. It neither aligns with the biblical covenant view, with the evidence that the Church in Acts baptized whole families, nor does it align with the exhortation of St. Peter in Acts 2:17-19 that baptism is “for you and for your children.” It also contradicts the whole witness of the Early Church, which provides the only authoritative interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, because their language, culture, context and closeness to the Apostles gave them clear insight into actual practice and meaning. 

Circumcision, instituted by God in Genesis 17, was given to infants on the eighth day, and St. Paul declares it to be fulfilled and replaced in baptism: “In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands… buried with him in baptism” (Colossians 2:11-12). Just as circumcision ingrafted a child into the covenant community, so baptism unites even the youngest infant to Christ and His Body, the Church. God always works by covenant, never by isolated contracts with individuals. When Israel crossed the Red Sea, St. Paul says this was their baptism into Moses (1 Corinthians 10:1-2), it was not only the strong men and women of faith who passed through the waters, but their wives, their children, and their little ones carried in arms. 

The Fathers knew this and taught it plainly. Origen, writing in the third century, says: “The Church has received from the Apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to infants” (Commentary on Romans, 5:9). St. Cyprian of Carthage, addressing the question of whether infants should wait until the eighth day to be baptized, insisted: “We all thought it well… that the mercy and grace of God ought to be denied to no man born” (Letter to Fidus, AD 253). And St. Augustine, arguing against the Pelagians, declared: “The custom of Mother Church in baptizing infants must not be scorned, nor regarded as needless, nor believed to be anything else than an apostolic tradition” (On the Baptism of Infants, 4). 

This is the only paradigm that works biblically and historically. Any alternative collapses either into an over-rationalized, individualistic system, or into a gnostic obsession with knowledge and comprehension. The sacrament acts because God acts, not because we understand. Just as the Israelites did not understand all the mysteries of the Passover lamb, yet were delivered by its blood, so the baptized child does not grasp the depth of grace poured out, yet receives it truly. 

To cut off infants, children, and the weak in mind or body from baptism is to deny the very essence of the Gospel, which is that God comes to us before we come to Him. As St. John says, “We love Him, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). The sacrament is His initiative, His gift, His covenant - upon us, upon our children, and upon our children’s children, unto a thousand generations of them that love Him (Deuteronomy 7:9).

I understand that this is hard to accept, because Baptists focus so much on the individual in salvation, and see personal faith as the key to the Gospel, making baptism a declaration of faith in Jesus Christ and otherwise unnecessary for salvation (contradicting St. Paul’s insistence that “baptism now saves you!” in 1 Peter 3:21). While I sympathize with this cultural perspective, and with the motivation that desires clear repentance and conversion of heart, I also believe that the Apostolic Doctrine of Baptism does not contradict its use as a witness to the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Our Lord. However, this perspective on its symbolic witness cannot be allowed to cancel the Covenantal, Sacramental, and Mysteriological categories that likewise make themselves quite clear in the biblical context. They must be united and held together in dynamic tension. Allowing all these truths to stand together, without reduction or desacralization, is essential.

May God give you strength and clarity as you discern the Truth! 

Bp. Joseph