From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Part 2 of a series. Read part 1.

The position on baptism presented in this series is the author's personal doctrinal position, and is not part of TTW's official doctrinal statement.

Credobaptism versus paedobaptism: What are the differences? Who holds which view, and why?

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit..." (Matthew 28:19).

Among Bible-believing Christians we find individuals and churches holding two very different positions on water baptism. Some believe that baptism is an act of testimony on the part of an individual who already possesses saving faith in Jesus Christ. They believe that water baptism has no other significance or purpose. The theological term for this is the credobaptist or believer's baptism position. Virtually all Baptist churches and many independent churches are credobaptist.

However, other true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ take a very different position. Like credobaptists, they practice the water baptism of individuals who come to saving faith in Christ; but unlike credobaptists they also baptize the infant children of believing parents. They believe that baptism signifies not necessarily saving faith, but rather covenant membership in the visible church. The theological term for this is the paedobaptist or covenant baptism position. Most Presbyterian and Reformed churches (other than Reformed Baptists) are paedobaptist.

Paedobaptists: The Orthodox and the Apostate

Let me be very clear: In this second case I am speaking of a position held not by apostates, but by believers in the one true Gospel of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. The people and churches in this second category do not believe that infant baptism, or any baptism with water, saves anyone. This distinguishes them from many other churches that do teach that infant (or adult) baptism has a saving effect. The Roman Catholics teach this, as do most Lutherans today. In the present day, many Presbyterian and Reformed churches, as well as the non-paedobaptist Church of Christ denomination, also teach the grievous error of baptismal regeneration.

These unbelieving groups all embrace one of three positions that are contrary to the Gospel: 1.) that water baptism actually saves the infant, or 2.) that water baptism signifies God's promise to save the infant, or 3.) that the church and the parents can presume that an infant is saved because the child has been baptized with water. All three positions clearly contradict Scripture, effectively substituting the waters of baptism for the blood of Christ. Only Christ's blood can take away sin.

But paedobaptists who believe and preach the one true Gospel - and they are, to be sure, a minority among paedobaptists - do not practice infant baptism for any of these reasons. They do not believe that water baptism saves anyone. But they also do not believe that water baptism is exclusively the testimony of an already-present saving faith. They believe that water baptism primarily signifies membership in the Covenant of Grace, and therefore signifies admission to the rights and privileges of membership in the visible church.

They hold this view because they believe that baptism is the New Testament replacement for Old Testament circumcision. And so they believe that under the New Covenant water baptism should be administered both to un-baptized individuals who come to saving faith in Jesus Christ, and also to the infant children of believing parents. That is how they interpret key passages in the Word of God. One of the main purposes of this study is to examine the validity of those interpretations.

The Author's Journey

At this point let me share a few words of personal background. I was saved at a young age while in a congregation of the Bible Presbyterian Church, a body in which, at that time, both paedobaptism and credobaptism were practiced by different ministers of the denomination. (I was not baptized until after I was saved.) From very early in my Christian life onward, I heard what I considered to be cogent arguments for both views. For many years, the credobaptist and paedobaptist views enjoyed what might be called a peaceful coexistence within my conscience.

However, later in life I began to question the validity of paedobaptism. My uncertainties began, and grew, each time I read the Old and New Testaments in parallel year after year. They intensified as I experienced firsthand the evil fruits of doctrinal deviancy in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, in which I had been ordained as a ruling elder. False teaching about baptism (mainly that it places the recipient, adult or infant, in an actual or presumptive saving union with Christ) was a central factor in the OPC's apostasy.[1]

I joined with other OPC men in efforts to defend the Bible's teaching that baptism saves no one. But when it became obvious that the OPC would persist in propagating the heresy of baptismal regeneration, I left the denomination (as did my church) and became a member of another Presbyterian body in which I was subsequently ordained to the Gospel ministry.[2]

When I was examined for ordination to the ministry, I openly expressed growing concerns about paedobaptism to the Presbytery. But at that time I honestly stated that I had not reached any fixed conclusions against paedobaptism, and that nothing in my conscience prohibited me from subscribing to the Westminster Confession of Faith's statements on baptism. I also promised that if I ever came to believe that credobaptism is the only permissible practice, I would inform the Presbytery without delay.

Some time later, after intensive study of the Scriptures on the issue during a twelve-month period, I came to believe that the Bible gives clear warrant only for the baptism of believers in Christ, and that New Covenant membership is limited to believers only. When I informed the Presbytery of my change of position, my brothers in Christ graciously and cordially agreed to my request to become an independent minister of the Gospel. I remain so today.

In taking this stand regarding baptism I recognized that many dear brothers, men I deeply respect, who love and preach the one true Gospel, were just as firmly convinced in the opposite direction. But there is a sense in which we are all on the same side of the baptism issue. While we now differ on paedobaptism versus credobaptism, we all agree on these vital points:

• As long as either a paedobaptist's or credobaptist's beliefs on baptism do not violate Biblical salvation doctrine - that eternal life is by God's grace alone, through faith alone, in the finished work of Christ alone, apart from works, sacraments, or ordinances of any kind - then differences on baptism do not constitute a difference about the Gospel itself.
• However, as soon as either a paedobaptist's or credobaptist's apologetic for his position begins to amend or negate any fundamental of Biblical soteriology - by saying that water baptism either saves, signifies a promise to save, or involves a presumption of salvation - then he crosses the unbridgeable gulf between the one true Gospel and a false gospel, and is under God's anathema (Galatians 1:8-9).

Let me also say at the outset that I came to the credobaptist position by prayerful resort to Scripture alone. I did not first consult any individual personally, or read anyone's written work. I began, as it were, with a "clean sheet of paper." I wanted to reach a personal conclusion - whatever it might be - based upon Scripture alone, and then consult and test the published positions of godly men on both sides of the issue.[3] That testing process reinforced the major conclusions I first drew from personal study of Scripture.

My own study went far beyond the scope of the issues addressed in this series. But to take up every aspect of the New Covenant baptism question, and to deal with every Scripture directly or indirectly bearing upon it, is beyond the scope of this brief work. Other men have written excellent, more comprehensive books stating the case for New Covenant credobaptism, and I could not improve upon them.[4]

In assessing any doctrinal position it is vital to identify and test the essential core of that position - the point or points on which it stands or falls. As I studied the baptism question, one thing decided the issue: I became convinced that the three foundational tenets of paedobaptism are not supported by Scripture alone. All other arguments for paedobaptism stand or fall on the validity of those three. Therefore I have limited the discussion that follows to those key paedobaptist propositions, and the principal Bible passages used to support them.

This series will explain why I believe, on the authority of Scripture, that only those who possess saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ are qualified to receive the ordinance of water baptism under the New Covenant.

References:

1. Of course, there are mirror-image abuses among credobaptists. For example, many Southern Baptist churches insist on baptizing all their young people by age twelve or thirteen, regardless of whether a youngster has made a credible profession of faith in Christ or not.

2. The author was first ordained to the ministry in The Evangelical Reformed Presbyterian Church.

3. I eventually consulted over sixty works. Among the authors were both paedobaptists who later became credobaptists, and credobaptists who became paedobaptists.

4. I do not agree with him on some secondary issues, but I believe Dr. Fred Malone makes perhaps the most comprehensive exegetical case for New Covenant credobaptism in The Baptism of Disciples Alone: A Covenantal Argument for Credobaptism Versus Paedobaptism (Founders Press, 2003). Among older works, Adoniram Judson's Treatise on Christian Baptism is a classic statement of the credobaptist position.

Next: The Conservative Paedobaptist Position

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