Now when they heard this, they were pricked
in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and
brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter
said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy
Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that
are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call (Acts
2:37-39).
BAPTIST ARGUMENT:
“How does this text imply infant baptism?”
(I)
Rev. Ronald
Hanko
[Source:
Sprinkling, Infant Baptism and the Bible]
The
relation between baptism and the promise of God
is of critical importance. Not
only, as we shall see, does the Baptist fail to take the promise of God
regarding His covenant seriously, but the Baptist does not even see that
baptism marks and seals that promise.
Watson, whose book we have already quoted, explicitly rejects the idea
that baptism is “the sign of an objective promise, and has no reference to the
character and condition of the person baptized,”[Watson, Baptism not for Infants, p. 80] and therefore also the idea that
baptism is a seal of anything.[Ibid., p. 82]
Not
only do paedobaptists see baptism as a seal of God’s objective promise, but
object strenuously to the Baptist idea that baptism somehow marks the spiritual
condition of the person baptized. Where
in Scripture is the support for the idea that baptism somehow shows the
spiritual character of the person baptized?
Indeed, no Baptist can consistently maintain that baptism marks the
spiritual condition of the person baptized unless he is willing to say that
every baptized person is saved. Even he
knows better. He will say he baptizes fewer unsaved persons, but that is to
concede the whole point, even if what he says is true (it is, of course,
unprovable). Admitting that they baptize
even one unsaved person, is the same as admitting that baptism does not
mark, sign, seal, or embody the spiritual condition of the person
baptized. It cannot. It can only mark, sign, seal, embody
something objective—the sure and unchangeable promise of God.
Watson
closes his case for believer’s baptism by saying, “Not that any church of
professing believers will be entirely free from occasions of stumbling,
alas. But it will be much purer than the corresponding paedobaptist church, and will
thereby bring more glory to the name of the Saviour.”[Ibid., p. 101] Somehow, the Baptist case always seems to
come down to this utterly unprovable assumption. Yet even if it were proved, it only shows
that the Baptist does not believe his own objections to paedobaptism. He says that paedobaptism is wrong because
individuals who do not have faith are baptized and then admits that he has the
same problem while trying to cover himself by saying that he has “less” of a
problem.
Insofar
as baptism marks the objective promise of God, it is exactly like circumcision,
which is called a seal of the righteousness which is by faith, in Romans 4:11:
And he received the sign of circumcision, a
seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised:
that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not
circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also.
It
is true, of course, that circumcision did not guarantee that the person
circumcised was justified in the sight of God, but neither does baptism. Circumcision guaranteed the objective promise
of God to justify His people. It
sealed that promise only to the elect, but to them it was sure; and insofar as
it was applied to their children, it also guaranteed the rest of God’s promise
that He would have His elect and justified people among their children.
We
say, then, that baptism seals something to those baptized—though only to the
elect; that is, the sure promise of God to be the God of His people and of
their children. We add, however,
that it is also a seal to the whole
church of that promise of God to the elect and their elect children—a kind
of visible gospel promise; but with this, we will deal in more detail in
chapter 17.
What
has been said about God’s promise leads us to two passages from His Word:
Acts 2:39
The
text reads:
For the promise is unto you, and to your
children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the LORD our God shall
call.
Though
there is no mention of infants being baptized on Pentecost, nor any proof that
there were such, the case for infant baptism does not rest on proving the
unprovable. It rests, rather, on what
God says in Acts 2:39. This verse,
however, gives the reason for what is stated in the previous verse, as the word
“for” indicates. In the two verses,
Peter is saying to the adults there, “Repent and be baptized because the promise is unto you.” Notice that Peter does not say “Repent, and
then be baptized because you have repented.” Those present were not
baptized on account of their repentance, even though the baptism in this case
must have followed the repentance, but on
the basis of the promise of God.
That promise, Peter says, is not only to them, but also to their children. It is on that basis that we baptize
infants—the promise is to them also.
That
promise can be the basis of infant baptism because it is a promise of God, sure
and immutable. Hebrews 6:13-20 tells us
this:
For when God made promise to Abraham,
because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself, saying, Surely
blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he had patiently endured, he
obtained the promise. For men verily
swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all
strife. Wherein God, willing more
abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel,
confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it was
impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled
for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: which hope we have as an
anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that
within the veil; whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an
high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.
This,
of course, gets us into the whole question of whether or not the promises of
God are conditional to all or particular and unconditional to the
elect only. Let us simply state
that, on the basis of Hebrews 6:13-20 and other passages, we believe firmly in
an unconditional and particular promise and find in that the only
possible ground of infant baptism. To
teach a conditional and general promise is to overthrow the sure ground of
infant baptism in Scripture.
Those
paedobaptists who believe in a conditional promise have denied the basis of
infant baptism. This, we believe, is one
reason why many Baptists put so little stock in paedobaptist arguments and find
them unconvincing.
A
Baptist asks his paedobaptist acquaintance, “Why do you baptize infants?” The paedobaptist says, “Because of God’s
promise to save believers and their children.”
The Baptist says, “But not all of those children are saved! How can you baptize them all?” To which the paedobaptist replies with a long
explanation of the fact that the promise is for all children of believers
conditionally but depends for its fulfilment on their later response.
The
Baptist sees immediately that such a promise is really no promise at all and,
therefore, no basis for infant baptism.
Indeed, he could justly respond, “In that case you would be better off
as a Baptist and wait for that response on which the fulfilment of God’s
promise and the child’s salvation depend.”
If
the promise of God is to be the basis of infant baptism then that promise must
be sure, unconditional and particular; that is, only for the elect. Such a promise provides a firm foundation for
infant baptism in that it guarantees absolutely the salvation of the (elect)
infants of believers.
That
promise is the basis of infant baptism, also because it promises salvation to believers and their children and promises it
unconditionally (God’s promises never depend on us). That salvation promised is the salvation
symbolized in baptism.
Nor
will the argument of the Baptists overthrow this, that some infants of those
adults to whom the promise comes do not have the promise, either as it comes
promising or as it is surely fulfilled.
Scripture
makes it very clear:
1.
The unbelief of some does not void the promise or make it of none effect. Romans 9:6 says: “Not as though the word of God hath
taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel” (cf. also
4:16);
2.
Neither natural descent nor coming under the preaching of the promise guarantee
a share in the promise. That is the
teaching of Romans 9:7-8: “Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are
they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the
flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are
counted for the seed (cf. also 10:16ff); and
3.
The promise is its own guarantee, in that it is the sovereign, efficacious,
and immutable Word of God, and, as such, brings about the
spiritual rebirth of those to whom it belongs, so that they very really can be
called “children of the promise” (Rom. 9:8).
To
put it in terms of Acts 2, the fact that the immutable and unconditional
promise of God is to “believers” and “their children,” though not to all their children, neither voids the
promise itself nor its sureness, but rather insures the salvation of some. On that basis (that some—the elect—will
receive the salvation promised) we baptize all.
No
Baptist can guarantee that all who receive the sign of baptism receive the
reality. In that light, we baptize on a
better basis than the Baptist, for the Baptist baptizes some on the basis of what
they have done in repenting and believing, without any assurance that it is
genuine—while we baptize on the basis of the promise of God, believing
that it will be fulfilled, even if only to some of our children.
No
Baptist we have ever met takes that promise to heart. Though it is the promise of God, who cannot lie and who does not change, the
Baptist always puts a big “maybe” in front of it—an act of unbelief and
stumbling at the Word of God. We confess
our faith in that promise by having our children baptized, even while we
understand that the promise never has and never will guarantee the salvation of
all of our natural descendants. If even a remnant is saved according
to that promise, the promise has not failed:
Even so then at this present time also
there is a remnant according to the election of grace (Rom. 11:5).
We
insist, therefore, that the promise must be received as a promise that God will
have His elect among our natural descendants when we believe. It is in this confidence that we baptize our
children, believing that God will use even that to separate the wheat from the
chaff. We will have more to say about
this later, but the point is that the unbelief of some does not void the
promise, and that baptism, like the preaching of the Word, is a two-edged
sword, used both for the salvation of some and the condemnation of the
rest. For those reasons, we are not
afraid to baptize, knowing that some will be baptized who are neither saved nor
elect.
The
rejection of this argument by the Baptists on the basis of the last part of
verse 39, “even as many as the Lord our God shall call,” will not do. They insist that this means that those who
have the promise and are baptized must also be able to understand and respond
to the call. But this ignores the
grammar of the sentence. They want to
read the sentence: “The promise is
[now] unto you, and [will be] to your children and to all who are afar off,
even as many [of them] as the Lord our God shall call.” But that reading does not make sense either
in Greek or English. Try to read the verse
that way without the words in parentheses!
The
verb, “shall call,” with its future tense can only refer syntactically to
“those who are afar off.” The first part
of the verse must, therefore, be read as a whole: “The promise is to you and your children.”
The
grammar of the text puts “us and our children” together and separates “those
who are afar off.” If children were
lumped with “those who are afar off,” then the text would read, “... to you and
to your children and all who are afar off.”
In other words, the promise belongs to those who believe at the
moment of their believing. They
have, then, God’s own guarantee of the salvation of their children.
In
the end, however, the argument makes little difference, for even with respect
to those who are afar off, the Word of God in Acts 2:39 indicates that the
promise already belongs to them also! It
is worth noticing, too, that the promise belongs to them, not because they will
repent and believe, but because God will call them. We see here again, how the Baptist is forced
to put man’s activity to the front as the reason and ground for baptism, while
the Reformed consistently emphasize God’s work and sure promise as the ground
and reason for baptism.
Another
way of putting it is to say that the Reformed baptize in the assurance that God
will fulfil His promises, do the work He has spoken of and save His elect—while
the Baptist always baptizes merely on the basis of a person’s own profession
and in the hope that the person baptized will not turn out a hypocrite.
One
more thing concerning this verse.
Baptists always insist, in their defense of believer’s baptism, that
Acts 2:39 has nothing in particular to do with believers and their children,
but is only the general call of the gospel to all who hear, including the
promise that those who repent will be saved.
But this promise is not addressed to all and sundry. It is a promise that God makes in the
church and to the church. As
Hooper puts it:
We should understand first that it is a
promise God has given to His church. No
such promise has been made to the ungodly and their children. The promise of Acts 2:38 and 39, with the
hope and comfort it conveys, is no more for the children of the world than the
promise of Genesis 17:7 and 8 was for the Egyptians, Philistines, Hivites or
Girgashites and their children. This
sets the children of believers apart from all other children and has
implications for every area of their life, whether in home, school or church.
[John Hooper, Believers, their Children, and the Gospel of Sovereign Grace,
p. 12].
---------------------------------------------
(II)
Rev. James D. Slopsema
[Source: The Standard Bearer, vol. 62, no. 13
(April 1, 1986), p. 304]
This passage places us in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost when
the Holy Spirit was poured out on the church. This becomes the occasion for
Peter to preach a most wonderful sermon. He informs the crowds that have
gathered in amazement that what they have seen and heard is all the work of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom they had just crucified but whom God had raised
from the dead and exalted into glory. And when those who are pricked in their
hearts ask what they must do, Peter responds that they must repent and believe,
“for the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar
off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.”
Notice that Peter speaks here of the promise. This is the promise
of salvation in Jesus Christ, the promise given by God in His covenant, the
promise sealed in baptism. This promise is first to those who responded
positively to the gospel and thereby showed the beginning of God’s work of
grace in their hearts. But that promise is also to their children. Here,
again, we have the principle that God’s grace and salvation is for believers
and their seed.
---------------------------------------------
(III)
More to come! (DV)
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