“Are parents authorized by Jesus Christ to baptize their children at home? Can a Bible study privately partake of the Lord’s Supper? From our special online event Made in the Image of God, Burk Parsons and Stephen Nichols consider who may legitimately administer the sacraments.” - Ligonier
“Spontaneous baptisms have been receiving a lot of attention of late.
Baptism really isn’t a difficult topic, but it’s become difficult by all the history, tradition and baggage associated with the different interpretations of this ordinance. It’s a beautiful ordinance, and it’s too bad there’s so much misunderstanding about it!
Here’s the bottom line; baptism doesn’t “do” anything to you or for you. It’s a picture of what the triune God (Father, Son and Spirit) has already done in a believer’s life. This means it’s only for repentant, professing believers – not infants.
Some of my best friends and my most admired heroes of the Christian faith believe in the practice of baptizing infants and bringing them into the membership of the church apart from any profession of faith. My love and respect for these dear brothers and venerable men of God has on more than one occasion inclined me to reconsider whether they’ve got it right and I’ve got it wrong.
But after “revisiting” the issue several times, I’m still a Baptist. I could offer several reasons. But one reason involves the teaching of a text that’s often overlooked in the Infant Baptism (Paedobaptism) vs. Believer Baptism (Credobaptism) debate. That text is John 1:12-13.
The Council of Trent was a key event in the so-called Roman Catholic “counter reformation.” It was held in Trento, Italy, from 1545 – 1563. This excerpt is from Trent’s remarks about baptism:1
CANON I.—If any one saith, that the baptism of John had the same force as the baptism of Christ: let him be anathema.
CANON II.—If any one saith, that true and natural water is not of necessity for baptism, and, on that account, wrests, to some sort of metaphor, those words of our Lord Jesus Christ: Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost:1 let him be anathema.
The book Apostolic Tradition is a Christian text which dates from the 3rd century A.D. It’s traditionally attributed to a man named Hippolytus, though the work may well be an edited compilation. It describes liturgical practices from the 3rd century, so it’s a very interesting time-capsule of early church practice. One translator cautioned that, just because liturgy reads a certain way in Apostolic Tradition, we shouldn’t blindly assume this reflected actual practice; this document could be compiled musings of several armchair liturgists, after all!1
