For Christian parents who don’t baptize their babies, this is an important question for obvious reasons. Baptism is Jesus’ ordinance of conversion, the first task of the Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19).
But behind the question is an important issue for every Christian parent and one that makes all the difference: How do I respond to my child’s profession of faith? I’m setting aside arguments from the covenant for paedobaptism and only dealing with the baptist position in this article. I minister to people of both credo and paedo convictions, and my main concern is not when the water goes on, but with how the parents nurture and disciple their kids, and this concern addresses the temptations and pitfalls of both positions.
Tim Challies answers the question of when to baptize here. He offers this definition of baptism which I’m happy to work with:
Baptism is an ordinance of God given to the New Testament church. It symbolizes that the recipient has been buried and resurrected with Christ and serves as public profession of faith and admission into the local church community. It precedes both membership and partaking of the Lord’s Supper, and as such, is the gateway to full participation in the life of the church.
Given this good definition and its consequences–that the unbaptized are not church members nor able to take the Lord’s Supper–Challies points out that many if not most children of believing parents profess faith at a young age. And yet he still recommends that the typical Christian kid get baptized in their mid to late teens. The reason for this hinges on the requirement of a credible profession of faith. No doubt Challies wants to preserve the purity of the church and not breed presumption or baptize false professors, but what if he is asking the wrong questions and setting the bar for baptism where Jesus didn’t?
If most kids are professing faith at a young age, the question we ought to ask ourselves is “On what basis can I deny baptism to anyone (much less my kid) who professes faith in Christ?” Some would think that waiting to baptize is the safer route–let’s make sure they’re saved. But denying little kids access to Jesus is no better (and according to Him, worse than drowning yourself) than proclaiming they are his prematurely. We can disobey in either direction. When we look for a credible profession of faith, we need to let the Bible define what credible means in this context. Here is a guide for baptizing children.
1. Jesus tells us to imitate and not stumble the faith of children.
After telling the disciples to become like children in order to be great in the kingdom (imitating their blind, unquestioning faith, we wrongly tell ourselves), he gets specific: ““Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt. 18:5-6). The word for child here can mean infant or small child. Jesus says these kids believe in me, which means it’s possible for ours to have faith, and that we ought to and then imitate it. We don’t have to understand everything about this, but like Anselm, we believe first in order to understand. It becomes clear once we do. If your kids profess faith when you ask them if they believe in Jesus’s divinity, death and resurrection, believe them.
2. Since children can have faith, those that do should be brought to him:
“Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away” (Matt. 19:13-15). These children own the kingdom of heaven, so they get to come to Jesus. Christians commune with Christ most intimately in his Supper when he offers us his body and blood. Here is where Presbyterians turn into Baptists, denying baptized children access to Jesus until they make a credible profession, but it’s hard to get around Christ’s command: Let the little children come to me.
3. The bar for baptism is low.
In contrast to our desire to see lots of faith, Jesus says “For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you” (Matt. 17:20). Small faith in a big God is good enough for Jesus. Of course seeds grow into big trees, but baptism is not for the mature. By definitions it’s for new Christians. Protestants are all about justification by faith alone, but somehow the Reformation goes out the window when talking about kids. We want a list of works, a rational explanation, a mature profession and fourteen years around the sun. But Jesus wants child-like faith from young or old.
4 COMMON OBJECTIONS
“My child professes to believe in Jesus, but would also believe in Santa Claus if I told them to.”
Hopefully you’ve told them about St. Nicholas, the great pastor of Myra in the 4th century and benefactor of children, but that aside, the fact that your children trust you is not a problem–it’s a design feature. We believe the vast majority of what we do because we take it on good authority, and if you tell your kids the truth about Jesus’ divinity, historical death and resurrection, they’re supposed to believe you. If you’re telling them they’re part of a cosmic accident and that God may not exist, it would be good to stop lying to them. I’d recommend not lying to them about Santa Claus either. But regardless, the fact that they would believe a lie if you told it to them is not a good reason for doubting them when they say they believe the truth. God built us to trust our parents and he told Christian parents to teach their kids all about him (Prov. 22:6; Deut. 6:7; Eph. 6:4).
“But I think I want them to be baptized more than they do.”
Most new believers have no idea that baptism is important, and this is as it should be. This why Jesus tells us to baptize, then teach all things. Only children like standing up in front of crowds less than adults, so we shouldn’t expect them to ask for it. Parents, particularly fathers, are supposed to lead their children spiritually, and this is one way of saying, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15). “We follow the Lord. Are you ready to be baptized?” You’re not supposed to lay out a bunch of false gods and superstitions for your children to choose from, but rather lead them to the living God. You can’t coerce or gin up faith for your children, but you can trust God’s promises, believing like Abraham for your household, and look for him to bestow the gift of faith.
“But my kid sins all the time.”
So do you and you’re still a Christian who knows better. Repentance and true faith go together, so if a child has true, age-appropriate remorse and is willing to confess sin and be forgiven, following your lead, that’s all that matters. Every Christian is a work in progress, and the point of sanctification is that we all need to grow in holiness. The idea that someone has to be mature or sanctified before baptism nullifies the entire point.
“I want them to remember their baptism and for it to be a significant experience.”
This may be the most dangerous reason for prolonging baptism. You want them to have an experience, but if they already have faith, their conversion experience, if they can remember one at all, has already happened and is authenticated by the work of the Holy Spirit. If they’re Christians, the fruit is on the tree, and what we’re saying is in effect it’s not good enough for us. It might be good enough for God, but we’re looking for certainty. So the child (often now a teenager) needs some cataclysmic spiritual experience to make them sure they’re a Christian and crave baptism. And so all kinds of insecure Christian kids manufacture a testimony–a fake one their parents want them to have. Or worse, they go get into sin so they have something really stupid to repent of. But they know that after whatever “experience” (for the paedo crowd this is arriving at a certain age when they’re allowed to take communion), nothing is different about them. So they conclude they’re not really converted since nothing has changed, or that the church is so discouraging that this isn’t for me anyway.
What matters about baptism is that it happened. I don’t remember everything about my wedding day. I probably couldn’t repeat my vows exactly from memory, but I know I took them and I know what they mean–that I’m married, enormously blessed, and obligated to be faithful to my wife. Were I to have an accident and lose my older memories, this would change nothing about my covenant marriage. When Paul tells Christians to remember their baptism, he doesn’t talk about their experience that day or the sin beforehand. He tells Christians they “have been baptized into Christ Jesus…into his death” (Rom. 6:3). Put another way, baptism is about Jesus, not us. We remember what he did, not what we did. We’re called to persevere not because we had a huge conversion moment, but because Jesus died and rose, and we’re baptized into him. Our shifting emotions are stabilized on this rock.
What are the benefits of baptizing young children who profess faith?
1. The work of God is recognized and celebrated as the Spirit fulfills the promise of the New Covenant: “for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord” (Jer. 31:34).
2. It points everyone away from an overly emotional and experiential conversion paradigm that causes many to doubt their salvation. C.S. Lewis said you don’t have to know when the sun rose to know it is shining. Faith flourishes naturally in this environment.
3. Children become members of the church, both encouraged in their faith and role in the body. Kids can sniff hypocrisy a mile off, so rather than being ignored or patronized, their faith sets the example Jesus it does, and adults grow in humility, honesty and faithfulness. The entire church grows in holiness.
4. It sets the whole church on a deeper path to maturity. Many churches treat kids like unbelievers for well over a decade rather than spending that time discipling and equipping them to be faithful. This changes that entire paradigm, and kids grow up thriving in the gospel from an earlier age. Their input makes all the church parties bigger and better.