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Transcript 346A — Should Babies be Baptised?
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum
CALLER: Hi, Brother Camping. I was wondering about infants . . . I was wondering, should babies be baptized? I'll take my answer over the air.
HC: All right. Fine. Good night.
The question is, should babies be baptized? Actually, I'm well aware that this is a question where there is a wide difference of opinion. There are many churches that do baptize infants, and there are many churches that do not. I really believe that we can only look to the Bible to try to find some kind of an answer.
Now in the Old Testament, we read in Acts 17, when God came with His covenant to Abraham, God said, "I will be a God to you and your children." And the sign of this covenant is that he was to be circumcised, and all of the children in his family or under his control were likewise to be circumcised. We read in Genesis 17:10: "This is My covenant which ye shall keep between you and thy seed after thee. Every man child among you shall be circumcised. Ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt Me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generation, he that is born in the house, bought with money, or any stranger which is not of thy seed."
And so we read in verse 24: "And Abraham was ninety-eight years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, and Ishmael, his son, was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. In the selfsame day was Abraham circumcised and Ishmael, his son. And all the men of his house, born in the house or bought with money of a stranger were circumcised with him."
Now it is at this point in time that God began the kingdom of God in its corporate fashion with the nation of Israel, because Abraham was the father of Isaac and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of twelve sons who became the heads of the tribes of Israel. And the sign of belonging to the kingdom of God corporately, or in an organizational way, was circumcision. And notice when they were circumcised, when they were babies, when they were little infants.
Actually, this circumcision did not guarantee salvation for any of these children. Ishmael was circumcised, and there is no evidence in the Bible that he was saved. The slaves that belonged to Abraham were circumcised, but there's no evidence in the Bible that they were saved.
But because Abraham was the head of that household, and ruled over them, and God had made a promise that He would be with him and his family, all of his household was circumcised as an outward sign that Abraham's house had become identified with the kingdom of God. The Gospel was present with the family of Abraham. Those in that family who would believe that Gospel could become born again.
Now in the New Testament we find that God did away with the sign of circumcision. That was particularly related to the nation of Israel as the outward sign of the covenant. And the nation of Israel, from the time of the cross on, ceased to be the recognized official corporate body of Christ. Beginning with the cross and Pentecost, God set up another recognized corporate body, consisting of the congregations and the churches and denominations and groups of believers that would be formed from every nation. And therefore God set aside the sign of circumcision, because it was identified particularly with the nation of Israel.
But in Acts 16 we have the account of the salvation of Lydia, and we have the account of the salvation of the jailer of Philippi. And it's very interesting what we read here. We read in Acts 16:14: "And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple in the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us, whose heart the Lord opened." Incidentally, you notice how it is God who does the salvation: "whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have Judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there."
Now that's interesting, isn't it? She was saved, and at the time she was baptized her household was baptized. It's parallel, very parallel, to the situation that we read about in Genesis 17. Now as if to make certain that there would be no misunderstanding, we also read on in Acts 16 about the experience of Paul and Silas with the jailer of Philippi. The jailer asked in verse 30, "What must I do to be saved? And they said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." Now that's a parallel promise to the one given to Abraham, "I will be a God to you and your children."
And then it goes on: "And they spake unto him the word of the Lord and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes and was baptized, he and all his, straightway." Interesting, isn't it?
The fact is that God is really indicating here that New Testament baptism is the outward official declaration that someone has become identified with the kingdom of God. Now if I as a parent become saved, I am to be baptized in water, to indicate that I have entered the kingdom of God. But it would seem to me that if when Abraham was given the promise that God would be his God, God told him to circumcise his children, because, after all, he ruled over his children, and there was a promise given to his children that God would care for them, and so they were to be circumcised, to indicate that they too were now associated with the corporate body of Christ, they too had come close to the kingdom, it seems to me therefore that we ought to baptize our children, to indicate that they too have become identified with the kingdom of God. This does not guarantee their salvation. This simply is a matter of identification, of claiming God's promise, where He declares, "I will be a God to you and your children."
Now our task is to bring up our children in the fear and the nurture of the Lord. And we have the promise of God: "Train up a child in the way that he should go, and in his old age he'll not depart from it." You see how this all begins to knit together in a beautiful picture.
Now if we claim God's promise that He will be a God to us and to our children, if we have entered the kingdom of God, and we know now that our children too are corporately in the kingdom of God, we should not be surprised, if we're training them in the fear and the knowledge of the Lord, if our children at a very young age begin to show to a high degree, a high percentage of the time, that they love the Lord, and there is evidence that they too have become saved.