7. Baptism: Its Meaning and Its Subjects

Baptists take their very name from their practice of baptism, so it is no surprise that Rock and Sand gives the subject special attention. Trenham calls the rejection of infant baptism “the central tenet of Anabaptism,” and he believes that Baptist teaching on this point has shaped American individualism more than most people realize.⁸⁶ His case rests on four claims. Being “born again” means being baptized. Baptism is the moment of salvation. Infants should be baptized because infants were circumcised. And the New Testament shows whole households, infants included, being baptized together. This section examines each claim, but it begins with the ground the two sides share.

Common Ground

Baptists and Orthodox Christians agree on more about baptism than either sometimes remembers. Both believe that baptism was commanded by Christ Himself, who sent His disciples to “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). Both take it seriously and refuse to treat it as a mere formality. And both baptize by immersion. Trenham names baptism by threefold immersion as an apostolic practice, and Orthodox churches still immerse, even infants.⁸⁷ On this point the Orthodox stand much closer to Baptists than do most Protestant churches.

Baptists also agree that baptism is the sign of the new covenant, as circumcision was the sign of the old. The disagreement is not over whether there is a covenant sign, but over what that sign marks and who should receive it.

What Baptism Follows

The simplest way to learn what baptism means is to watch it happen in the New Testament. The book of Acts records many baptisms, and the order of events is always the same.

On the day of Pentecost, the crowd heard Peter preach and were “cut to the heart.” Peter told them to repent and be baptized, and “those who gladly received his word were baptized” (Acts 2:37–41). In Samaria, “when they believed Philip [who was] preaching the Good News… they were baptized, both men and women” (Acts 8:12). The Ethiopian official heard the gospel from Philip and asked, “What is keeping me from being baptized?” (Acts 8:36).⁸⁸ In Philippi, Lydia heard Paul preach, and “the Lord opened her heart to listen to what Paul was saying.” Then she and her household were baptized (Acts 16:14–15). In Corinth, “many Corinthians, when they heard, believed and were baptized” (Acts 18:8).

The most striking case is the household of Cornelius. While Peter was still preaching, “the Holy Spirit fell on all those who heard the word,” and they began speaking in other languages and praising God. Peter then asked, “Can anyone refuse the water to these people, seeing that they have received the Holy Spirit as well as we had…?” (Acts 10:44–47). Notice the reason Peter gives for baptizing them. It is not that baptism would give them the Spirit. It is that they had already received the Spirit. Baptism followed the reality. It did not create it.

Hearing, believing, then baptism: that is the order in every account. It is never reversed. Baptism is the public answer of a person who has already heard and believed the gospel.

Born of Water and Spirit

Trenham’s strongest claim about baptism concerns the words of Jesus to Nicodemus. “Amen, amen, I tell you; unless one is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God!” (John 3:5). Trenham writes that “to be born again is to be born of water and the Spirit in Holy Baptism,” and he calls the evangelical use of the phrase “born again” a misuse of Scripture.⁸⁹ Since the whole Baptist understanding of salvation is built on the new birth, this claim must be weighed carefully.

Begin with the conversation itself. Jesus tells Nicodemus that what is born of the Spirit is spirit, and that the Spirit is like the wind, which “blows where it wants to, and you hear its sound, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:6–8). That is a strange description of a rite performed by a priest at an appointed hour. It describes the free and unseen work of God.

Then Jesus asks Nicodemus a pointed question: “You are the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?” (John 3:10). He expected Nicodemus to understand already, which means the answer lay in the Scriptures Nicodemus knew. Christian baptism, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, had not yet been commanded. But the prophet Ezekiel had long ago spoken of a day when God would sprinkle clean water on His people to cleanse them, give them a new heart, and put His own Spirit within them (Ezek. 36:25–27).⁹⁰ Water and Spirit together: cleansing from sin and the gift of new life. That is the new birth Jesus was describing, and a teacher of Israel should have recognized it.

The rest of the New Testament points the same way. It says that believers are born again through the word of God. Peter writes that they have been “born again, not of corruptible but of incorruptible seed, through the word of God” (1 Pet. 1:23). James writes, “He brought us forth of his own will by the word of truth” (James 1:18). John says that to those who received Christ, “to those who believe in his Name,” God gave the right to become His children, who were “born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12–13).

Paul provides what may be the clearest test. He reminded the Corinthians that he had become their spiritual father: “in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the Good News” (1 Cor. 4:15). Yet in the same letter he says, “I thank God that I baptized none of you, except Crispus and Gaius,” and adds, “Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the Good News” (1 Cor. 1:14, 17). If baptism were the new birth, these two statements could not stand together. Paul could not thank God that he had given new birth to so few of his own spiritual children. But if the new birth comes through the gospel, and baptism follows as its sign, then Paul’s words make perfect sense. He begot them through preaching. Others could baptize them.

The Passages on Baptism and Forgiveness

Several verses seem to tie forgiveness directly to baptism, and they should be read fairly.

Acts 2:38. Peter told the crowd, “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the Name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of sins.” Repentance and baptism belong together here, as they do throughout Acts. But Peter does not always mention both. Later he preached, “Repent therefore, and turn back [to God], so that your sins may be blotted out” (Acts 3:19), with no mention of baptism at all. And to Cornelius he said that “everyone who believes in him will receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43), and that household received the Spirit before any of them touched the water. Forgiveness is promised to faith and repentance. Baptism is the outward confession that goes with them.

Acts 22:16. Ananias told Paul, “Arise, be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the Name of the Lord.” The washing is joined to calling on the Lord’s name, and Paul himself later wrote, “Whoever will call on the Name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom. 10:13). Baptism is the outward picture. Calling on Christ in faith is what saves.

1 Peter 3:21. Peter writes that Noah’s family was saved through water, and that “this is an antitype of baptism, which now saves you.” But he immediately explains what he means: “Baptism is not the putting away of the impurity of the flesh but the appeal of a good conscience… toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”⁹¹ Peter himself says it is not the water that saves. It is the appeal of the heart to God, made through the risen Christ. The ark was a picture of salvation, and so is baptism.

Titus 3:5. Paul writes that God saved us “through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.” The washing here is regeneration itself, the cleansing that the Spirit performs. And the same verse says that God saved us “not by works of righteousness which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy.” It is hard to read this as a description of a ceremony performed by men.

The Covenant Sign

Trenham’s main argument for infant baptism is drawn from the covenant with Abraham. God commanded that every male child be circumcised on the eighth day (Gen. 17:12). Baptism has replaced circumcision as the sign of God’s covenant, Trenham argues, so the children of believers should receive it as infants. He adds that any criticism of infant baptism could just as well be made against infant circumcision, and so against God’s own command.⁹²

Baptists agree with the first half of this argument. Baptism is indeed the sign of the new covenant, as circumcision was the sign of the old. But the two covenants are entered in different ways. A child born into Israel became a member of the old covenant by his physical birth, and the sign was given to mark what his birth had already made him. The new covenant is entered by a different birth. Its members are those born “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). The sign marks what that birth has made them. So the principle is the same in both covenants: the sign follows the birth. Baptists do baptize infants. They baptize those who have just been born of the Spirit.

This is why the new covenant is described as it is. The prophet Jeremiah foretold, and the letter to the Hebrews repeats, that in the new covenant “all will know me, from their least to their greatest” (Heb. 8:11).⁹³ Israel had always included many who did not know the Lord. The new covenant, by its very definition, does not.

Abraham himself shows the order. Paul asks whether Abraham was counted righteous before or after he was circumcised, and he answers: “It was not after, but before he was circumcised!” Abraham “received the sign of circumcision, (a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was still uncircumcised), so that he might be the father of all those who believe” (Rom. 4:10–11). For Abraham, faith came first and the sign followed. And Paul adds that the true children of Abraham are those who share his faith: “those who are of faith are likewise Abraham’s children” (Gal. 3:7).

Trenham points to Colossians 2:11–12, where Paul links circumcision and baptism.⁹⁴ But look at what the passage says. The circumcision Paul describes is “a circumcision not made with hands”, a spiritual circumcision of the heart. And believers were buried with Christ in baptism and “raised with him through faith in the working of God” (Col. 2:11–12). The passage ties baptism to faith, not to infancy.

Trenham also quotes Peter’s words at Pentecost, “the promise is to you, and to your children.”⁹⁵ But the sentence does not end there. It continues, “and to all who are far away, even as many as the Lord our God will call to himself” (Acts 2:39). The promise is for every generation, but in every generation it reaches those whom God calls. Two verses later Luke tells us who was baptized that day: “those who gladly received his word” (Acts 2:41).

Finally, Trenham’s warning that criticism of infant baptism is criticism of God’s command misses the point. Baptists do not question God’s right to give a sign to infants. He did so under the old covenant, and He was right to do it. The question is only whether He has commanded that the sign of the new covenant be given to infants. The New Testament contains no such command.

The Households

Trenham’s second argument rests on what he calls the “oikos formula,” from the Greek word for household. The New Testament, he observes, speaks repeatedly of whole households being saved and baptized, and he says this leads to the “undeniable conclusion” that entire households, including infants, were baptized together.⁹⁶

It is true that the New Testament records the baptism of whole households. But not one of these passages mentions an infant. And several of them say plainly that the members of the household heard and believed. When the royal official’s son was healed, “he believed, along with his whole household” (John 4:53). At Cornelius’s house, the Spirit fell on “all those who heard the word” (Acts 10:44). The Philippian jailer’s family heard the word spoken “to all those who were in his household,” and afterward he “was filled with joy for believing in God, along with his entire household” (Acts 16:32, 34). “Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with his entire household” (Acts 18:8). The household of Stephanas, which Paul baptized, later “devoted themselves to serve the saints” (1 Cor. 16:15). Two of Trenham’s own examples, the household of Zacchaeus and the household of Onesiphorus, do not mention baptism at all.⁹⁷

Trenham also argues that the New Testament never shows a child raised in a Christian home being baptized after he grew up, and he concludes, “It simply did not happen.”⁹⁸ But this is an argument from silence, and silence proves very little. The New Testament covers only the first generation of the church, when nearly every believer was a convert. It also never records the baptism of an infant. A man’s diary that never mentions breakfast does not prove that he went hungry every morning. It proves only that breakfast was not what he was writing about.

The Confession of Dositheos, which Trenham reprints, states the household argument in a single line: “in the Acts it is said that the whole houses were baptised, and consequently the infants.”⁹⁹ Everything depends on the word “consequently.” The text says that households were baptized. It does not say that the households contained infants, and in case after case it says that the households believed.

Children and the Kingdom

Trenham closes his chapter on the Anabaptists by quoting Jesus: unless a person changes and becomes like a little child, he will not enter the kingdom. He then says that Baptists believe children must become like adults in order to be baptized and saved.¹⁰⁰ As Section 1 noted, Baptists teach nothing of the kind.

The Gospels show what Jesus did with little children, and it is worth noticing. When people brought children to Him, He said, “Let the little children come to me! Do not forbid them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” Then “he took the children in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them” (Mark 10:14–16). He blessed them, and He held them up as an example of humble trust. He did not baptize them. Baptist churches follow the same pattern. They bring their children to Christ in prayer, ask His blessing on them, and teach them the gospel from their earliest years, praying for the day when they will believe it for themselves.

Trenham objects that Baptists have no fixed age for baptism.¹⁰¹ That is true, because the New Testament sets none. The question is never how old a person is. The question is whether he has heard the gospel and believed it. That was the only question asked in the book of Acts, and it is the only question Baptists ask today.

Baptizing Again?

Trenham observes that Baptists baptize people who were baptized as infants. Since Baptists do not accept infant baptism as true baptism, he suggests, they should understand why the Orthodox do not accept Baptist baptism.¹⁰² The point is fair, and it should be granted. Each side is acting consistently with its own convictions. The real question is which conviction agrees with Scripture.

From a Baptist point of view, a believer who was sprinkled or immersed as an infant and is later baptized as a believer is not being baptized twice. He is being baptized for the first time. Something similar happened at Ephesus, where Paul met disciples who had received only John’s baptism. When they heard the full message about Jesus, “they were baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 19:5). Their earlier washing was sincere, but it was not Christian baptism, and Paul did not treat it as such.

This is quite different from the practice, mentioned in Section 2, of baptizing the same believer again and again because he is never sure that the first time counted. There is “one baptism” (Eph. 4:5), just as there is one new birth. A believer who has been baptized once as a believer does not need to be baptized again. What he needs is the assurance described in Section 6.

The Early Witnesses

Trenham says that infant baptism has “a great measure of unanimity in church history and tradition.”¹⁰³ It is true that infant baptism later became the common practice of most churches. But the earliest evidence is not unanimous, and some of it points the other way.

The Didache, an early manual of church life, gives the oldest description of baptism outside the New Testament. It tells the church to baptize “having first said all these things,” that is, after teaching the way of life set out in its first six chapters. It adds that “before the baptism let the baptizer fast, and the baptized,” and that the one to be baptized should fast “one or two days before.”¹⁰⁴ Instruction and fasting are hard to require of an infant.

Around A.D. 200, Tertullian of Carthage urged that baptism be delayed, “principally, however, in the case of little children.” His counsel was simple: “let them become Christians when they have become able to know Christ.”¹⁰⁵ Tertullian did not hold every Baptist conviction. But his words show that two centuries after the apostles, the baptism of infants was still a matter of debate, and that a respected Christian teacher believed baptism belonged to those who could know Christ.

Conclusion

Baptism is not a small matter, and Baptists have never treated it as one. It is the public confession of a believer who has been born again. It pictures his death, burial, and resurrection with Christ: “we were buried with him through baptism to death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead… we might also walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). It is his first act of obedience to his Lord and his entrance into the fellowship of a local church. And because it is the sign of the new birth, it follows the new birth, just as the sign of the old covenant followed the birth it marked.

One subject in Trenham’s critique remains: the doctrine of God, and in particular the dispute over the Holy Spirit known as the filioque. It is not a dispute Baptists began, and it can be treated briefly.