Dear Weekly Readers!
First of all, on a personal note, my family
is so thankful to God that He has sent us a precious gift! Our first grandchild was born yesterday to my
son and his wife! They named him Joshua
Gary Ruotsala! God is good! All three are
believing Christians!
According to our understanding of the
scriptures he will be baptized as an infant.
We feel the baptism is a covenant and sacrament between God and man, and
anyone who believes is fit for baptism.
Children are surely God’s Children, and God gives faith!
Below is a historical piece about the
subject of baptism. It is much longer
than I like to publish in the Weekly Diner, but I decided to do it now anyway,
since the timing is right, and I have been too busy to write an article.
Please know and understand that the below
is not a doctrinal statement. It is not published or approved of by our church;
it is only a bit of history. Our
beliefs on Baptism have been written about before, and will be again, and can
be found in the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ as taught by the Apostolic
Lutheran Church of America.
Please read this just as a bit of
historical background. Today it seems
that so many churches baptize only as adults.
What did the church do many years ago? This article gives us a glimpse into the past.
Did
the Apostles Practice Infant Baptism?
One day a young man asked me the question,
“Did the apostles and early church fathers practice infant baptism?”
When I asked him for his reason for making
this inquiry, he replied that he had read in a book on this subject that before
the year 350 A.D., only adults were baptized. However, the writer had not
documented his claims by quoting or even referring to any church father who
lived during or before this date. Upon further investigation I have noticed
that whenever anyone tries to prove that only adults should be baptized, they
have documented their statements with quotations made during the sixteenth
century or later. I have often wondered why they have not quoted, some of the
church leaders of the first three or four centuries, Can it be that they have
not been able to find any statements to prove their claims?
On the other hand, we who believe in and
practice infant baptism can find an abundance of evidence from the writings of
the early church fathers to prove that they did practice infant baptism. We can
trace infant baptism back to the days of the apostles. Since this is true we
must conclude that it was performed with their sanction, if not with their own
hands.
From the scriptures we learn that the
apostles were very thorough in conveying their directions, injunctions, and
traditions to succeeding generations. Peter tells us in II Peter 1:15, “Yea, I
will give diligence that at every time ye may be able after my decease to call
things to remembrance.” And Paul says in II Timothy 2:2, “And the things which
thou hast heard from me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful
men, who shall be able to teach others, also.” With these facts before us, all
of us must admit that the testimony of the men who lived near the apostolic age
must be of very great weight in helping to decide what was apostolic practice.
Infant Baptism Practiced by Early Church
Leaders
One of the foremost of the early churchmen
is Augustine, who lived during the latter part of the fourth century. His
testimony is direct and to the point that infant baptism was the common
practice in his day and that it was apostolic tradition. His words are, “If anyone
do ask for divine authority in this matter, that which the whole church practices, and which has not been instituted by
councils, but was ever in use, is
very reasonably believed to be no other than a thing delivered by or from the
apostles.” (De Bapt. Cont. Donat.)
Chrysostom, who lived at the same time as
Augustine, complained that “too many permit their servants, women and children
to remain unbaptized.”
Gregory Nazianzen, who lived a half-century
earlier, shamed a mother who hesitated to bring her child to be baptized
because of its tender age by saying, “Hannah consecrated Samuel to God before
his birth and devoted him to the priesthood as soon as he was born,” and, that
“so children should be baptized in their tenderest age, though having yet no
idea of perdition and grace.”
A certain minister named Fidus, who lived
about the year 250, was somewhat squeamish about baptizing new-born babes,
because he was expected to kiss them after baptizing them. Because of his
scruples he brought it before a council of sixty-six bishops to decide whether
baptism, for the sake of decency, ought not to be denied to infants until after
they were eight days old. The Council with Cyprian, who died a martyr’s death
in 258, declared that “the mercy and grace of God are to be denied to none from
the moment he is born.” This proves that infant baptism was then the common
practice.
Origen was born in 185 and died in 254. His
father, grandfather and great-grandfather were Christians. He traveled
extensively, visited many of the apostolic churches, and resided in many of
them. Consequently he was well informed as to the traditions of the apostles
and the practice of the church concerning baptism. Therefore his statement
concerning this topic must bear considerable weight.
Here it is. “The church received from the
apostles the injunction (traditio) to give baptism even to infants, according
to the saying of our Lord concerning infants.” (Orig. in Rom. lib. 5, cap. 6,
p. 543.) Again, in his homily on Leviticus, he states, “Whereas the baptism of
the church is given for the forgiveness of sins, infants also are, by the usage
of the church, baptized.” In his commentary on the Book of Romans, he says,
“From the Apostles (i.e., the days of the apostles) the church has received the
tradition that baptism shall be administered also to small children.”
Tertullian lived from about 150 to 225 A.D.
As far as we have been able to discover his is the only voice that was raised
against the validity of infant baptism. Since he was born about 50 years after
the death of John, the apostle, and lived while Polycarp, a disciple of John
still lived, his words are very signifigant. By his opposition to infant
baptism, Tertullian proves that it was a common thing in his day.
Ireneus, who was a pupil of Polycarp, who
was a pupil of John the apostle, declares, “Christ came to save all—all who by
Him are re-born of God, infants, little ones, children, youth, and persons of
mature age: therefore he passed through these several ages.”
Justin Martyr, who was martyred in 165
A.D., has in one of his Apologies, written about the year 148, declared that
there were among Christians in his time many persons of both sexes, some sixty
and some seventy years old, who had been made
disciples to Christ from their infancy and continued undefiled all their
lives. Now if you deduct sixty or seventy years from the time Justin wrote his
Apology, you would be carried back into the very age of the apostles. Now we
know of no other way to make disciples of infants, except through the sacrament
of baptism. Consequently, if infant baptism was practiced during the days of
the apostles, who can say that it was without apostolic sanction?
The Apostolic Constitution of 225 A.D. says:
“Baptize also you little children and nurture them in the chastening and
admonition of the Lord. For he says, Let the little children come unto me and
forbid them not.”
In the Didache, or the Teaching of the
Twelve Apostles, which dates back to the first century, we read as follows,
“But concerning baptism, thus shall ye baptize, Having first recited all these
things, baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
in living (running) water. But if thou hast not living water, then baptize in
other water, and if thou hast neither, then pour water on the head thrice in
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
Dr. Wall, an eminent church historian and
scholar, after a thorough study on this subject, makes this conclusion: “As
these evidences are the first four hundred years, in which there appears one
man Tertullisn, that advises the delay of infant baptism in some cases, and one
Gregory, that did, perhaps, practice such delay in the case of his own
children, but no society of men so thinking or so practicing, nor no man
saying, it was unlawful to baptize infants, so in the next seven hundred years
there is not so much as one man to be found that either spoke for or practiced
any such delay but all the contrary. And when, about the year 1130 one sect
among the Albigense’s declared against the baptizing of infants, as being
incapable of salvation, the main body of that people rejected that opinion; and
they of them that held that opinion quickly dwindled away and disappeared,
there being no more heard of holding that tenet till the rising of the German
anti-infant Baptists in the year 1552.” (Wall on Infant Baptism, Vol. 2, ch.
10, p. 501.)
From history we thus learn that infant
baptism was practiced from the very beginning of the Christian Church, and also
that anti-infant baptism did not become a problem in the Christian Church until
the middle of the sixteenth century.
Scriptures Teach Infant Baptism
As we search the Scriptures we find
evidence that the apostles did practice infant baptism, When the apostles and
disciples proceeded to win converts to the Christian religion they went out
among the unbelieving Jews and heathen. All those who accepted Jesus Christ as
their Savior they baptized. Numbering among those who were baptized we find
entire families. In Acts 16:14-15 we read that “Lydia was baptized and her
household.” Now the Greek word translated “household” means not only her
immediate family but also her servants and their families. In the same chapter
concerning the Philippian jailer we read in verse 33, “And he took them in the
same hour of the night, and washed their stripes and was baptized, he and all
his, immediately.” In Corinthians 1:16, Paul states, “And I baptized also the
household of Stephanas.” Now these are only three instances of “households”
which the apostles and disciples baptized. Certainly they baptized hundreds, if
not thousands of other households which were not mentioned in the Scriptures.
Likewise, the Apostle Peter declared on the
day of Pentecost even before the first person was baptized into Jesus’ baptism,
that children are to be baptized. In Acts 2:38-39 we read, “Repent ye and be
baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your
sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for to you is the
promise and to your children.” Thus
he declared that children are to be baptized in order that they may receive
these gifts.
Therefore the Christian Church still
baptizes infants because the Word of God teaches it and the Christian Church,
including the apostles and early church fathers, has always practiced it.
© 1983 A.M. Stone
Faith & Fellowship Press
