A Bible History of Baptism

Section C. —Household Baptisms

We have seen the grace of God expressed toward the children of his people, under the Mosaic economy, by their being embraced with their parents in the terms of the covenant. We have seen their admission thereto announced and confirmed by the seal of baptism. We have seen no token of the withdrawal of that grace by the Lord Jesus when in person on earth. We have heard, on the contrary, his confirmation of it in terms as strong as language can furnish. We have seen that same covenant, its terms unchanged, and its seal the same, thrown open, through the ministry of the apostles, to the Gentiles, and heard the testimony of the apostle, that our children are not unclean, – offensive to God, but holy, – acceptable before him. We now proceed to consider the facts and principles involved in the household baptisms, which are described in the New Testament. First, however, it is proper to make an important correction in the aspect in which the subject is commonly viewed and discussed. The principle which the Scriptures set forth and establish is not that of the baptism and membership of infants, as such. The fundamental element of the visible church, as conceived and set forth, in Scripture, is not the individual, but the family. As God planted the earth in families, so in the covenant with Abraham he laid down the family society as the foundation stone, on which, at Sinai, the church was builded; and hence the organization of the church of Israel upon the family principle, and its government by the eldership, the representatives of its families. Under this constitution, the infants, were of course included. But the designation and discussion of the subject, under their name, as if it were a question of infant baptism and infant membership, distinctively, does injustice to the subject, as it leaves out of sight and practically excludes the fundamental principle involved. That principle is, parental headship, and the consequent grace of God bestowed on the families of his people, – their children and bond servants, – as identified in and represented by them.

1. The first case of household baptism mentioned is that of Lydia, – “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.” – Acts xvi, 14, 15. Here, the essential facts are, (1.) that the house of Lydia were by the inspired historian, recognized in no other capacity than as being (oikos autēs) her house. Their number, their names, their ages, their distinctive relation to her, whether as children or servants, their several or joint sentiments toward the gospel, – on all these points he is silent. The one single fact to which he directs our attention is Lydia’s property in them. (2.) Of Lydia alone it is said that the Lord opened her heart; and upon this fact exclusively is predicated her baptism and that of her house. Should any surmise that her house also believed, we do not object, provided the surmise is not to be made an essential part of the record. If it be insisted that they believed and therefore were baptized, we reply that had such been the conception of the sacred writer, it would have been as easy, and far more important for him to have stated their faith, as he has recorded their baptism. The supposition that they did in fact believe, only renders his silence on that point the more significant. (3.) These facts occurred in the ministry of that same Paul whom we have just seen to testify that the children of believers are holy. In a word Luke states the fact of the baptism, and the ground of it. Lydia believed, and she was baptized and her house. Because of her faith, to her and to her house the old, the everlasting, covenant was fulfilled, – “to be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee.”

2. The baptism, which soon followed, of the jailer and his house is equally explicit on this point. He said to Paul and Silas, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. 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. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and (ēgalliasato panoiki, pepisteukōs tō Theō,) rejoiced with his house, he believing in God.” – Acts xvi, 30-34. Here, again, we have a construction which remarkably ignores the question whether his house, as well as he, believed. It may he assumed that they were all of an age to hear and understand the gospel. It may be assumed that they, so understanding, believed also. But it may not be assumed that such knowledge and faith were the ground of their baptism, because the sacred writer puts it upon a different ground. It was as identified with him – as belonging to him, that they were included in the rite. “He was baptized, – he and all his.” Thus their relation to him is the defining term. “He and all that were his.” – He and none but his; and they because they were his. Such is the force of the expression as it stands. In the same direction looks the closing expression. “He rejoiced with all his house, – he believing.” That his house did not believe we neither assert nor deny. The point of importance is, that their faith is no element of the case, as stated on the record, upon which was grounded their baptism. The alternative is clear and inevitable. Either he, only, of all his house did in fact believe; or, if his household shared in his faith, the remarkable manner in which, in the narrative, they are associated with him in his baptism and joy, but omitted from the statement which describes him alone, as believing, was an express and designed intimation that his personal faith was the controlling element in the case, according to the terms of the everlasting covenant, – “to be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee,” and the assurance given him by Paul, – “Believe, … and thou shalt be saved and thy house.” He was recognized and dealt with as the head of his house, precisely as was Abraham.

3. Paul declares that he “baptized (ton Stephana oikon) the house of Stephanas.” – 1 Cor. i, 16. Here, again, there is no discrimination of individuals. The characteristic upon which he predicates the baptism is the relation which he indicates. It was the house of Stephanas, as such, whom he baptized.

Respecting these cases, it may be admitted that if taken separately, they would constitute no conclusive evidence to the present purpose. But such is not their position. They stand as one element in a series of facts and principles which together present a cumulative argument conclusive and unanswerable. These begin with the Abrahamic covenant and the family principle there established. They include the Sinai constitution, in which the same principle was ineffaceably engraved. They comprehend the opening of the doors of the church thereon founded, to the Gentile world, with this principle unimpaired. They reveal the love of Christ to the babes, in the history and instructions of his personal ministry, and in his parting commission to Peter. They hold up the testimony of Paul, that the babes of believers are “saints.” It is in the presence of these great facts, inscribed in letters of light upon the records of fifteen hundred years; and in the absence of any thing whatever to contravene their testimonies, or to set aside the conclusions thence following, that the household baptisms in question are to be considered. The children and household were once unquestionably embraced in God’s covenant with his church. “Everlasting,” was by His finger written on the face of that covenant. (Gen. xvii, 7.) In its terms, as announced at Sinai, place for the Gentiles was expressly reserved; and upon their ultimate admission, no trace of change, in these respects, appears in the record. On the contrary, in the cases just examined, we have the most conclusive evidence, in view of the foregoing facts, that the position of the family has not been changed by the coming of Christ, and the giving of the gospel to the Gentiles. It still continues a unit under the parental head; and the same grace which blessed the seed of Abraham because of his faith, – the same which, at Sinai, embraced the children with their parents, in the covenant and the fold, still extends those privileges to the children of Gentiles who believe. They are holy.

Conclusion

And now, at the goal, we turn to survey the broad field of our explorations, and to note the accumulated results. From this vantage point, many things appear in a light of peculiar instructiveness and beauty. But one feature stands out in proportions of loftiness, and glory, which cast all else into the shade of insignificance. As with rapt spirits, we gaze, the high throne is revealed where sits the Son of man, – his human form robed in the Father’s glory, – his countenance blending the infinite majesty of God, with the fullness of grace and truth, – his brow adorned with a diadem of many crowns, and all power in heaven and earth, in his hand. The heavens are astonished at the presence of his glory, and the adoring angels, prostrate, await his bidding. The fullness of the Spirit is his; and his office thus exalted it is, to baptize us sinners with that Spirit, – to give us thus, repentance and remission of sins and sanctifying grace, and to raise us up from the dead and make us sit with him in the heavenly places where he reigns. This is the central sun of the system which we have explored. From this baptism of the Spirit all the ordinances here examined, derive their instructive light and beauty. It is the original, – the heavenly pattern whence their form and office were divinely transcribed. It is, therefore, the rule and standard to which all baptismal rites and doctrines must be brought.

Tried by this rule, the figment of baptismal regeneration stands exposed in naked falsehood and dishonor; arrogating to men a share of the sovereign prerogatives of our glorious Baptizer; subordinating the functions of his grace to their will and wisdom, their fidelity and zeal.

The rite of immersion too, – already discountenanced by the united voice of the Scriptures, – when brought to this supreme and final test, is utterly wanting.

It is discountenanced by the transaction at Sinai, in which the church was separated out of the world and consecrated to God by a baptism of sprinkled water and blood.

It is discountenanced by the rites which certified and sealed the restoration of the healed leper to the communion of Israel.

It is discountenanced by the water of purifying with which the Levites were sprinkled, in their consecration to the service of God’s sanctuary.

It is discountenanced by the ordinance which appointed the water of separation, to be sprinkled as the ordinary and perpetuated form of the Sinai baptism, for sealing admission to the benefits of the Sinai covenant.

It is excluded by the declaration of the son of Sirach that the sprinkling of the unclean with the water of separation was a baptizing.

It is discountenanced by the sprinkled baptism of the thirty-two thousand infants and youths of Midian, whereby they were received into the fold of the covenant and the church.

It is condemned by every voice in the Psalms and the prophets which breathes a sense of the sinner’s need, or anticipates the blessings of Messiah’s grace, in the language of these ordinances.

It is excluded by the explicit testimony of the apostle Paul, that these ordinances were baptisms.

It is condemned by the implacable war which it of necessity wages against the identity of the church from the day of the assembly at Sinai, – by its repudiation of the Old Testament church – the church of Moses and the prophets, which was for fifteen centuries a lone beacon light among the nations, God’s only witness amid the gloom of thick darkness which enshrouded the world.

It is discountenanced by the voice of John’s baptism which heralded and symbolized the outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost; and is excluded by all the circumstances of his ministry, which show that he could not have immersed his disciples, and that he would not have done it, though he could.

It is discountenanced by the whole style of the evangelists and apostles, who speak of baptism and its relations in the language of the Old Testament, and recognize it as a symbol of the outpouring of Pentecost.

It is excluded by the records of Christian baptisms as given by Luke, which, beginning with the three thousand of Pentecost and ending with the jailer of Philippi and his house, present an array of difficulties in the way of immersion, which are severally inexplicable, and together overwhelming.

It is condemned by its association with the kindred denial of the place which God has assigned to the family and the children in his fold and his covenant; and by all the facts which demonstrate their God-given and inalienable rights therein.

It is utterly condemned by the fact that it maims the symmetry and completeness of the sacramental system of the Christian church. Whilst the Old Testament sacraments exhibit in just proportions every part and feature of the plan of grace, and whilst the genuine ordinances of the New Testament, in like proportions, abbreviate the whole, exhibiting in the holy supper the sacrament of Christ’s humiliation and sacrifice, and in baptism that of his exaltation and glory, his power and grace, – the system in question, recognizes indeed, with us, in the Lord’s supper, the memorial of Christ’s suffering and death, but in baptism can see nothing but the symbol of his burial, and so leaves him and all our hopes shut up and sealed in the sepulchre of Joseph.

It is signally discountenanced by the remarkable fact that in every rite and every figure in which the Scriptures represent the active exercise by the Messiah of his official functions, the form of action is affusion, whether it be with the blood of atonement at the sanctuary of Israel, – the water, mingled with ashes or blood, which sprinkled the unclean, – the anointing oil poured upon the head; or the fires of justice rained down from heaven.

But why dwell upon minor particulars! The rite in question is condemned and excluded by the whole tenor of the Scriptures, which demonstrate that baptizo as there used does not mean, to immerse, and which reveal no vestige of other testimony in behalf of the rite, but everywhere show evidence abundant and conclusive against it.

But the capital and paramount consideration still remains, in the fact that this rite will not assimilate with, nor recognize the baptism which Christ dispenses from his throne. It ignores the exaltation whence that baptism descends, and refuses to testify of its outpouring of grace. And hence, although administered with the use of the words, it is not in the sense intended by the Lord Jesus, baptism “into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost;” for its doctrine has no relation to those blessed Persons, nor to our union with them. It is wholly occupied with another theme. Whilst the true baptism exultingly points upward to the throne of Christ’s glory, this rite looks downward ever to the grave.

To our readers we leave the question, – What one trait or characteristic of Scriptural baptism is traceable in this rite of immersion, in doctrine, or in form?

In entire consistency with a spirit of true Christian love and fellowship toward our brethren of the Baptist churches, we can not but realize an indignant revolt against this rite, so imperious in its claims, so devoid of evidence, so hostile to the true baptism of the Christian church, so efficient in creating division therein, – this rite in the zeal of which, those who reject it have been denied any part in the church of God, or place at his table, or portion in his covenant. Not such the ordinance which her glorious Head has bestowed upon his church, nor such the principles which he has taught her to cherish; – an ordinance in which is shown forth and celebrated the glory of his exaltation and his grace, – an ordinance which baptizes us into his name and that of the blessed Godhead, by setting forth the doctrine of that Godhead and of our union with it in Christ by the Spirit, – an ordinance which seals upon the brows of our babes that same blessing which they received in His own arms and from His own hands, in the days of his flesh; – and principles which teach us to recognize and embrace in the bonds of love and the fellowship of the covenant and of the church all those who in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their Lord and ours, even though they may grievously err respecting outward rites and forms.

Now to Him, the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory, for ever. Amen.

1

My authorities are “A voyage to Abyssinia, and travels in the interior of that country, executed under the orders of the British government, in the years 1809 and 1810, etc., by Henry Salt, Esq., F. R. S., etc., London, 1814;” and the personal testimonies of several of our missionaries to the east, who have related to me what they saw.

2

I assume what I believe to be demonstrable, that Paul was the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

3

“Carson on Baptism” (published by C. C. P. Crosby: New York, 1832), p. 117.

4

“The Land and the Book.” Vol. II, pp. 531, 534.

5

Below p. 175.

6

Maimonides, Issure Biah, Perek 13, in Lightfoot, Harmonia Evang. in Joan i, 25.

7

Maimonides, as above, in Lightfoot, on John iii, 23.

8

According to Etheridge, the final revision of the Babylonian Gemara was completed by Rabbi Jose, president of the rabbinic seminary at Pumbaditha, on the Euphrates, in the year 499 or 500. —Jerusalem and Tiberias, pp. 174-176.

9

Tract Pesachim, cap. viii, § 8.

10

This is clearly shown by Etheridge, in “Jerusalem and Tiberias.” Pp. 339 et seq. The same thing is largely illustrated in Blavatsky’s “Isis Revealed.”

11

Compare Ezek. xlvii, 2; John ix, 7. “Go wash in the pool of Siloam, which is by interpretation, Sent.”

12

Carson on Baptism, p. 167.

13

This reading is attested by codices Bezæ, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and is fully sustained by the internal evidence.

14

Wilkinson, vol. iii, p. 388; Abridged edition, ii, 349.

15

Lynch’s Dead Sea Expedition, p. 206.

16

Maitland’s “Church of the Catacombs,” p. 261. Also, Withrow’s “Catacombs,” p. 333.

17

“Several of them [Arabs of the Jordan] wore sandals, a rude invention to protect the feet. It was a thick piece of hide, confined by a thong passing under the sole at the hollow of the foot, around the heel, and between the great toe and the one which adjoins it.” – Lynch’s “Dead Sea Expedition,” p. 282. These thongs were the “latchets” of Mark i, 7.

18

"Ύδωρ ἐπὶ τοὺς πόδας μου οὐκ ἔδωκας." The preposition, επι, with the accusative, means upon, with the idea of previous or present motion, – to wit, (in this place,) of the water, poured and flowing upon the feet.

19

Gen. xxiv, 13. – ; Ex. ii, 15-19; Judges v, 11; Ruth ii, 1-4; 2 Sam. xxiii, 15; 1 Sam. ix, 11; John iv, 7; Matt. xx, 1-7.

20

See Wilkinson, above quoted, and Smith’s Greek and Roman Antiquities, article “Balneæ;” and below pp. 200, 207.

21

Bryant’s Odyssey, Book X, 429-437.

22

Juchasin, fol 16, in Lightfoot.

23

Ps. cxiii-cxviii, were known among the Jews as, the Hallel, that is, Praise, being sung at the temple on the first of each month, and at the annual feasts.

24

See Ezek. viii, 16.

25

Lightfoot on this Feast and that of Tabernacles. Lewis’s “Origines Hebraeæ.” Pool’s “Synopsis,” etc.

26

Rabbi Solomon on Num. xxix, in Lightfoot on this feast.

27

Pool’s Synopsis, on John vii, 37. He refers to Grotius.

28

Lewis’s Origines Hebraeæ, p. 606.

29

“The Meaning and Use of Baptizein, Philologically and Historically investigated for the American Bible Union. By T. J. Conant, D. D.,” p. 158. The italics are by Dr. C.

30

“Antiquities of the Jews,” XVIII, vi, 2.

31

J. W. Etheridge, in “Jerusalem and Tiberias.” P. 105.

32

Sale’s “Koran,” chapter v.

33

ἀφ’ ὡν ἔθος αὐτο μιανεσθαι. – “From those things which custom causes to defile it.” Ἔθος, commonly means a custom grounded in law. (Compare Acts vi, 14; xv, 1; xvi, 21; xxi, 21; xxv, 16; xxvi, 3; xxviii, 17; etc.)

34

Philonis Judæi Opera omnia, Frankofurti, 1691, De Victimas Offerentibus.

35

Josephus, Antiquities, IV, iv, 6.