1. The Church had already “backslid” into Catholicism.
2. These people are not representative of the Early Christians.
Unfortunately, neither of these holds water and we are again confronted by the start reality that the Early Church was indeed very different from us and, dare I say, very Catholic.
When dealing with the subject of infant baptism one of the first retorts from people of my background would be: “But the Bible doesn’t teach it.” The problem for those who believe in IB is that nowhere is it explicitly stated that this was the practice of the Early Church. There are, however, some interesting places where one might logically infer that this was indeed their practice.
In the New Testament there are five texts that speak of household baptisms. It is reasonable to assume that somewhere in one or all of these five households there were some children of young age. But it says that all the house was baptized.
1. Acts 11:13-14 And he shewed us how he had seen an angel in his house, which stood and said unto him, Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter; Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.
2. Acts 16:15 And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us.
3. Acts 16:33 And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway.
4. Acts 18:8 And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized.
5. 1 Corinthians 1:16 And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other.
Are these passages conclusive proof? Certainly not. But they do offer tantalizing clues which must be analyzed when dealing with the subject from a Biblical point of view.
As do other passages from early writers that do not say so much as suggest the possibility. When St. Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost, he gave this as his altar call:
And Peter said to them, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him." (Act 2:38-39)
An article by Jordan Bajis entitled Infant Baptism offers the following observations concerning this prime Pentecostal passage:
It is also interesting to note that this quote from Peter's Pentecostal sermon does not merely state "... the promise is for you and children," but "for you and your children," which makes it clear that the children mentioned here were young enough to still be considered under the protection and authority of their parents. This is underscored when one understands that it was common for women and men to marry at the very young ages of twelve and thirteen, respectively. From this it becomes reasonable to assume that these children to whom Peter refers were young juveniles or, at the very least, in their preadolescence. (http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/liturgics/bajis_infant_baptism.htm)
In a fascinating article Do Baptists Talk to their Babies? Peter J. Leithart (author of Against Christianity—a thought-provoking work) makes some salient points on this subject.
Let me take this a further step. If the child cannot understand what a parent is saying, is it rational for the parent to speak to him or her? Baptist parents as well as others speak to their infants, and do not expect the child to understand or to talk back for many months. They see nothing irrational in this. They speak to their children, that is, they employ symbols, not because they think the infant understands all that is being said or because they expect an immediate response. They speak to their children so that the child will learn to understand and talk back. So too, we baptize babies not because they can fully understand what is happening to them, nor because we expect them to undergo some kind of immediate moral transformation. We baptize them, and consistently remind them of their baptism and its implications, so that they will come to understanding and mature faith. (http://www.biblicalhorizons.com/rr/rr047.htm)
Dr. Dennis Johnson makes these three points in his article Infant Baptism: How My Mind Has Changed:
1. The book of Acts does not mention one instance of an adolescent or young adult from a Christian home who subsequently receive baptism after making a “personal decision.”
2. In speaking about household baptisms, the book of Acts never says explicitly that the young children and/or infants were disallowed from baptism because their age prevented them from expressing a personal commitment.
3. The New Testament gives us no example or instruction that indicates to us that children under the New Covenant were to be treated differently than children of the Old Covenant. The very opposite is true about the other changes from Old to New. [IIIM Magazine Online, Volume 3, Number 24, June 11 to June 17, 2001; http://thirdmill.org/newfiles/den_johnson/TH.Johnson.Baptism.pdf]
I am under no misapprehension that the things I have said will change anyone’s mind. But then again, that was not what I was aiming for to start with. I want to make people think and I want to think publicly in this written form so that others can at least be exposed to these things. Too often we tend to reject someone’s alternative beliefs out of hand without ever hearing them out as to why they believe as they do. By reading this, one might have his/her mind opened even the smallest bit. And that cannot necessarily be a bad thing—I hope.
