Q. 45. Why has the Church baptized infants throughout its history?

• AOR 27
• Belgic Confession 34
• Heidelberg Catechism 74
• WCF 28.4
• WSC 95
• Augsburg Confession 9
• Second Helvetic Confession 20
• Luther’s Small Catechism 335
• Geneva Catechism 333–339

The Church baptized infants. From the earliest times, and for most of its history, the whole Church baptized infants. In The Apostolic Tradition (c. 217 AD), Hippolytus describes the baptism of “little ones … who cannot speak for themselves.” Bishops at the Council of Carthage (253 AD) unanimously agreed that infants could be baptized from the day of their birth, and did not need to wait until the eighth day, as with circumcision (Cyprian, Epistle 58). Origen and Augustine are representative of the East and West: “The church had a tradition from the apostles to give baptism even to infants” (Origen, Commentary on Romans 5.9.11); “This is the firm tradition of the universal Church, in respect of the baptism of infants” (Augustine, On Baptism, Against the Donatists 4.23.31). Infant baptism, also called paedobaptism, was defended as biblical by the mainline Protestant Reformers and explicitly affirmed in the early Lutheran, Reformed, Presbyterian, Anglican, and Methodist confessions of faith (see “Sources” above). After setting forth “the grounds of infant baptism, taken from Scripture, reason, and primitive, universal practice,” John Wesley concludes, “this must have been the practice of the Apostles, and, consequently, the mind of Christ” (Treatise on Baptism). The Anabaptists (modern-day Mennonites and Amish) were the first major Christian group to reject infant baptism, followed by the English Baptists in the 17th century.

Received … pledge. For around 2,000 years, God received infants into his covenant family through the visible sign of circumcision (Genesis 17:14), and included infants with their parents in his covenant dealings (Deuteronomy 29:10–12). Abraham “received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised” (Romans 4:11), but his infants were given the sign and seal of God’s promises before they were capable of conscious faith. Abraham believed first, then was circumcised; his children were circumcised first, then believed. Given this Old Testament background, and the missionary context of the New Testament, the early church did not understand the call for adults to “believe and be baptized” as exclusive of infants who were incapable of conscious faith, especially since Peter used the language of the covenant of circumcision in his call to baptism (Acts 2:39; Genesis 17:7–10), Paul closely connected baptism with circumcision (Colossians 2:11–12), and the apostles baptized whole households (Acts 16:15, 33). “Infants as well as adults belong to God’s covenant and congregation. Through Christ’s blood the redemption from sin and the Holy Spirit, who works faith, are promised to them no less than to adults. Therefore, by baptism, as sign of the covenant, they must be grafted into the Christian church and distinguished from the children of unbelievers. This was done in the old covenant by circumcision, in place of which baptism was instituted in the new covenant” (Heidelberg Catechism 74).

Heirs … covered. “Newborn infants of the faithful are to be baptized. For according to evangelical teaching, of such is the Kingdom of God, and they are in the covenant of God. Why, then, should the sign of God’s covenant not be given to them? Why should those who belong to God and are in his Church not be initiated by holy baptism?” (Second Helvetic Confession 20). “We believe our children ought to be baptized and sealed with the sign of the covenant, as little children were circumcised in Israel on the basis of the same promises made to our children. And truly, Christ has shed his blood no less for washing the little children of believers than he did for adults. Therefore they ought to receive the sign and sacrament of what Christ has done for them, just as the Lord commanded in the law that by offering a lamb for them the sacrament of the suffering and death of Christ would be granted them shortly after their birth. This was the sacrament of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, baptism does for our children what circumcision did for the Jewish people. That is why Paul calls baptism the ‘circumcision of Christ’” (Belgic Confession 34).

Welcomed … nurtured them to faith. Infant baptism should never be separated from catechesis in the church and family, or from the need for personal faith and repentance (see p. 340, “Exhortation to the Parents and Godparents”). Wesley explains, “Baptizing and teaching are the two great branches of [Christ’s commission]. And these were to be determined by the circumstances of things; which made it necessary in baptizing adult Jews or heathens, to teach them before they were baptized; in discipling their children, to baptize them before they were taught; as the Jewish children in all ages were first circumcised, and after taught to do all God had commanded them” (Notes on the New Testament, Matthew 28:19).