One of the many blessings God has graced our church with is a multitude of young children. Their running footsteps echo down the hallway. Their voices join (and sometimes even surpass) ours as we sing praise to God. Insistent hands tug on our shirts and dresses calling for our attention, even as we try to catch up with one another after the service. Each and every one of them is a gift to be celebrated and rejoiced in.
But they are not just gifts but responsibilities, entrusted to us by God to be raised in the fear and instruction of the Lord. Indeed it is our greatest desire that each of our kids would share our faith in Christ. To that end, together we as a church and individually we as parents seek to sow the seed of the gospel into the lives of our children in faith that God would cause it to grow into the full flower of faith.
As we seek to faithfully raise our kids in the fear and instruction of the Lord, one of the joys we will have to look forward to is baptizing our kids. But as great a joy as that has been and will be, there are challenges around it. Namely, when do we baptize our kids? Some baptize almost before the first “I believe” has escaped their lips. Others wait even until the late teenage years, desiring to test the genuineness of their faith. As parents and pastors we want to live in expectation for God to save our kids and joyfully celebrate when he does but we also realized that a great many in our culture have made professions of faith and are baptized and yet live as those who are dead in their sins. For them their baptism bears witness against them, that they know the truth and despise it. How do we faithfully, Biblically navigate this?
What follows is a summary of the Bible’s teachings on baptism and then an application of that teaching to how we want to approach the baptism of our kids as a church.
What is Baptism?
Baptism is one of the two ordinances (the other being the Lord’s supper) given by Jesus for his church to carry out for the upbuilding of the church. It serves several functions but here are a couple prominent ones Scripture teaches. First, Baptism symbolizes our union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection.
Romans 6:3-4 “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life.”
Paul says similarly in Colossians 2:12 “You were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.”
Baptism therefore is a physical picture of the spiritual reality of us dying and rising with Christ. Just as we go under the water, so by faith we go with him into the grave. As we come out of the water, we proclaim that we have been raised to new life by Christ.
Second, the New Testament presents baptism as a picture of our being washed clean of our sins. After his healing, Saul was told to “rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16). Peter appears to be speaking in a similar vein: “Baptism…now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clean conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 3:21). Notice how Peter casts baptism as an expression of faith. The act of baptism does not cleanse you from your sin, as if the water washes away your sins with the dirt. Rather baptism is “an appeal to God for a clean conscience.” It is an act of faith calling on God to make us clean. Wayne Grudem states this well in his systematic theology saying, “we might paraphrase Peter’s statement by saying, ‘baptism now saves you–not the outward physical ceremony of baptism but the inward spiritual reality which baptism represents” (p974).
Finally baptism symbolizes our initiation into the body of Christ: “For in one Spirit we were baptized into one body–Jews or Greeks, slaves or free–and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor 12:13). Through faith we are united to Christ by his Spirit and by our union with Christ we are united to one another. We are made into one body, one family, one temple of the living God.
So in baptism we renounce our citizenship in the kingdom of darkness, and we proclaim our faith in Christ to save, our membership in his body, and our allegiance to his kingdom. So by our baptism, the promises of the gospel we receive by faith are confirmed to us as ours. And thus there is a true grace imparted to us in it. Now we cannot say this is a saving grace and so proclaim a gospel by something other than justification by faith alone (for that is no gospel at all) but just because it is not saving does not make it any less grace.
After all, reading the Bible does not save us, but who can imagine maturing in our faith apart from regularly devoting ourselves to God’s word? Prayer does not save us but how frail is the faith of the Christian who rarely approaches his Father in prayer? Gathering together to worship with the body of Christ does not save us but who would deny the encouragement and strength we receive as we gather to worship? The Lord’s supper does not save us, but who among us would skip a meal with Jesus?
Likewise baptism does not save us, but there is a unique grace in it to lay hold of by faith. And it should be the goal of every new Christian to seek baptism as soon as possible. Indeed as we examine the texts above, baptism and faith appear to be so intertwined in the minds of the New Testament writers that it is difficult to separate at times. Faith and baptism are practically interchangeable by them to the point that an unbaptized Christian almost seems like a contradiction. An unbaptized Christian makes almost as little sense as an uncircumcised Jew. Having said that, it is important to state that baptism is not necessary to be saved as made clear by the repentant thief. Likewise not every one who is baptized will be saved. John says in his first epistle: “they went out from us, but they were not of us” (1 John 2:18). It is difficult to imagine how these apostates ever could have been considered at one time to be “of us” if they were not baptized.
Dangers surrounding Baptism
With all this in mind, two dangers concerning baptism appear before us. First there is a real danger in baptizing unconverted souls. Baptism is a public recognition of the baptized as a brother or sister in Christ. And yet, in the culture surrounding our church, we are surrounded by a whole host of kids and adults who have made a profession of faith and who have been baptized and yet bear none of the fruit of salvation. In the lives of such self-professed Christians, there is no repentance of sin, no pursuit of holiness, no treasuring of Christ, only a devotion to the flesh and worldly pleasures and so the name of Christ is defiled. To make matters worse, often these lost souls are given false assurance of their salvation on the basis of their baptism and childhood profession of faith despite their current lives bearing no good fruit of salvation. Their baptism is no grace to them but will bear witness against them on the final day as evidence they knew the gospel and yet rejected it.
Yet there is another danger in direct opposition to baptizing our kids too early, that of baptizing them too late. That is withholding baptism for extended periods of time with the goal of seeing the fruit of salvation bear itself out. If what has already been said accurately reflects the Bible’s teachings, then there is a real grace imparted through baptism that we are denying to children who profess faith by making them wait. Compounding this deprivation, participation in the Lord’s supper is often restricted to baptized believers, and so access to further grace is deprived to them. Perhaps even worse, there is a real way in which we could unintentionally proclaim a false gospel by our actions that we all deny with our words. It is not difficult to imagine how withholding baptism, so the child can mature and the fruit of salvation to be more easily seen, can appear as an outright denial of their faith and the implicit requirement that more than faith is needed for them to enter the kingdom of Christ. If more than faith is needed to be baptized, perhaps more than faith alone is needed to be justified?
Potential dangers then beset us on every side. Baptized unbelievers profane the name of Christ, often while thinking they are right with God. But an unbaptized Christian is almost a contradiction of terms and is deprived of the grace God intends for them in baptism. How should we prayerfully seek to navigate this knife edge? Perhaps more to the point, what does Scripture say about who is baptized? And how do we apply this to our kids?
Commands surrounding baptism
Here are a couple thoughts based on various commands to be baptized in Acts:
When Peter’s Pentecost listeners ask how they can be saved, Peter responds, “repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” It is common when thinking about baptism to focus on whether or not the child (or adult) has made a profession of faith or not. This is right and good. But even the demons “believe”. But a demon’s “belief” never leads it to repentance as true saving faith always will. Here are some questions we can ask then: is my child’s profession of faith accompanied by repentance? Is there any awareness of their need for forgiveness? Did he confess sins that he had “gotten away with?” Is there a sense that her sin offends God, not just a fear of the parent’s punishment for sin?
Of course faith in Christ is a clear requirement for baptism. In Acts 8 Philip is preaching the gospel to the Samaritans.Verse 12 records their response: “ when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.” This is self-evident to most of us. Those who wish to be baptized must believe the gospel. To be clear, a child’s understanding and ability to articulate the gospel will not be that of an adult’s, but we are not saved by our ability to articulate the gospel but by trusting in Christ. But trusting in Christ is different from believing there is a God or from a moralistic understanding of the gospel.
Finally, In Acts 8:36, after hearing the gospel preached to him by Philip, the Ethiopian eunuch sees some water and asks Philip, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?” Here too is another characteristic of saving faith: it desires to obey God and more specifically it desires to be baptized. And the one who has saving faith desires baptism not to please his parents, not because she saw her friend baptized, but to please and obey God. Baptism needs to be something the child desires out of obedience to Christ not something they have to be pushed into doing by parents or a pastor.
Putting this all together then
Some signs of true, saving faith we should be looking for in children (and adults) are repentance of sin, a knowledge of and profession of faith in the gospel, and a desire to obey God, especially in regards to baptism. The individual circumstances surrounding each individual will dictate what much of this looks like. Peter’s audience, the Samaritans listening to Philip, and the Ethiopian eunuch were all baptized either on the spot or soon after responding to the message of the gospel. And doubtless we will witness the Lord saving some in such a way that will leave no question as to the transforming work of the gospel. But we also have to realize that these things can be difficult to discern into children. We probably know some whose testimony is that they cannot remember a time when they did not believe. But we must also recognize that other forces can be at work. A child’s desire for baptism can easily stem more from a desire to please their parents than to obey God. A fear of getting caught can easily masquerade as repentance. Rote repetitions of a gospel summary mistaken for a profession of faith. Baptism profits nothing if faith does not accompany it. Indeed in such cases, it poses a danger, giving an assurance of salvation that is not in fact possessed.
Neither pastors nor parents will get all of this right all of the time. Pastors will delay baptism too much at times and at other times move too quickly. Parents will push too strongly at times and at other times be far too hesitant. At other times the baptism will be exactly right and yet the person will still apostatize. And so we must all bear with one another in grace and patience, rejoicing that salvation belongs to the Lord and not in our ability to perfectly discern his movements. We must eagerly expect the Lord to save–for he loves to do so–while being wise to the false motives which can encourage our kids toward baptism.
We must also be wise to the false motives which tempt us as parents when it comes to the salvation and baptism of our kids. How easy is it to know salvation is by faith alone and yet act like our good works of parenting can save our children? Baptism can easily become more of a vindication of our parenting than a celebration of God’s saving work.
But, “unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Psm 127:1), and the best, most Scriptural parenting practices avail nothing unless the wind of the Spirit blows through the heart of the child. And thus all godly parenting is born out of a recognition of our own inability to do anything but continually cast out the seed of the gospel into their lives and to shower those seeds in the waters of prayer, in faith that God will grant the seed to fall in the good soil where it will bear much fruit. And we should have great hope that he will do so, for he who said, “let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them” (Mt 19:14) loves to save them (although not always as soon as we would like). And so we have hope for our kids, that one day they will be transformed into brothers and sisters, and we will have the joy of baptizing them.
We also encourage you to watch the Saved and Sure Parenting Seminar with Pastor Mickey Connelly (Crossway Community Church). In this seminar, Mickey teaches on the guidance and encouragement God provides to parents for Christ-honoring leading and loving children in the area of salvation. (https://mysovgrace.church/saved-sure-seminar)