Pete's Blog

A paedobaptist is one who says that the baptism of children is legitimate. In my experience, it's not very common in Canadian evangelicalism. It's more common in the US than it is here, especially among Calvinists.

They make many arguments, but I really only find two compelling. One is the origin of infant baptism. If the NT is thoroughly credobaptistic (i.e., the conviction of believer's baptism), where did infant baptism come from, especially since we have records of infant baptism going back to the mid-second century? This isn't the argument I want to challenge, but to direct a word against it, if the early Church were struggling as much as it was on justification by faith alone, the deity of Christ, the supposed eternal virginity of Mary, and other things in Scripture, it's no surprise they erred on baptism.

The other is the connection of circumcision and baptism. That is, the paedobaptist would argue, if children were circumcised in Israel, and since "you were circumcised . . . having been buried with him in baptism" (Co. 2:11-12), i.e., baptism is New Covenant circumcision, children should be baptized. I don't want to deal exhaustively with this one either, but here's a word about this argument: Do paedobaptists baptize their children on the eighth day? Do they only baptize boys? No. Yes, there's continuity between baptism and circumcision, but even the paedobaptist must acknowledge there's also discontinuity.

Also, paedobaptists say that the Lord's Supper corresponds to the Passover (at least reformed paedobaptists do). The whole family, children and all, ate the Passover meal in Israel. But who's allowed to eat the Lord's Supper? Only believers. So it would seem logical that the rites the Israelites practiced that correspond to New Covenant ordinances are reserved for the Church, believers only. But, I've now spent more time on this than I wanted to.

The objection that paedobaptists make to credobaptists that I want to deal with here is another argument from history. They say that children have been baptized for centuries and that only baptizing adults is a (relatively) new invention. I at one time found this argument convincing. Thinking upon it recently, though, I realized the poverty of the argument. For I would say back to them that their view of baptism is a relatively new invention as well.

In the NT, in Catholic teachings, in Luther's writings, and now in credobaptists' theology, a baptized person is always a saved person (or, at least someone thought to be saved). The Catholics believed that baptism saved its recipients. And Luther was simultaneously a paedobaptist and a credobaptist. He said that baptism was a sign of the faith of a person, but indeed, he baptized babies. Seem inconsistent? Almost. He believed in infant faith.

Their position is no less historically novel than the credobaptist's is. In fact, before Luther's day ended, there were Anabaptists (the historical root of the modern day Mennonites, surprisingly, not the modern day Baptists) he was responding to who were practicing what he and the Catholics called re-baptism (Anabaptists are re-baptists since the prefix "ana" is Greek for again). So there's as much historical precedence for credobaptism as paedobaptism.

This isn't a positive argument for credobaptism. In fact, only the connection between the Passover meal and circumcision with the Lord's Supper and baptism that I pointed out here is a positive argument for credobaptism. The others are answers to arguments that paedobaptists make. For a positive statement, read Piper on baptism. For other resources, read this blog interview between Justin Taylor and Steve Wellum on the relationship between baptism and the covenants (long, but so helpful). Also, listen to the three part (1, 2 and 3) debate between Tom Schreiner (credo) and David VanDrunen (paedo).

If you're interested here's a list of contemporary figures and their stance on baptism:

• Credobaptists:
  
  • Mark Dever;
    
  • Al Mohler;
    
  • John Piper;
    
  • John MacArthur;
    
  • Wayne Grudem;
    
  • C.J. Mahaney;
    
  • Mark Driscoll;
    
• Paedobaptists:
  
  • R.C. Sproul;
    
  • Ligon Duncan;
    
  • J.I. Packer;
    
  • Tim Keller;
    
  • Sinclair Ferguson;
    
  • John Stott;
    
  • Derek Thomas.
    

Perhaps, also of interest, here is the position of some historical figures (thus demonstrating my limited knowledge of Church history):

• Augustine (paedo);
  
• Anselm (paedo);
  
• Aquinas (paedo);
  
• John Calvin (paedo);
  
• Huldrich Zwingli (paedo);
  
• John Owen (paedo);
  
• Richard Baxter (paedo);
  
• John Bunyan (credo);
  
• Jonathan Edwards (paedo);
  
• Charles Finney (paedo);
  
• George Whitefield (paedo);
  
• J. Gresham Machen (paedo);
  
• D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (credo);
  
• William Carey (credo);
  
• Adoniram Judson (credo).