52 • MID-AMERICA JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
complete unanimity cannot be found among these writers on all
issues pertaining to baptism, it is fair to say that together they
represent a major consensus among proponents of believer’s
baptism. What follows is a distillation of their arguments against
infant baptism, gleaned from their own polemics as well as the
sources they cite in defense of their position.8
In summary form, the baptism of infants is impermissible for
the following reasons: (1) Practitioners of infant baptism
fundamentally misconceive and misconstrue the nature and import of
baptism; consequently, in allowing infants to be baptized, the
proponents of this custom misuse the ordinance that Christ
ordained for the benefit of believers.9 (2) The New Testament witness
is silent on the question of infant baptism, evident in that not a
single instance of the practice can be adduced for its support,
including the texts that describe household baptisms.10 (3) The
key New Testament texts that paedobaptists cite in support of the
baptism of infants simply are not applicable, including the often
vague appeal to the covenant of grace and the continuity that
allegedly exists between the Old and the New Testaments on the
nature and place of children in the covenant community.11 (4)
The sequence for the operation of salvation that prevails in the
New Testament is contrary to the theology and practice of
baptizing infants, for that sequence consists of gospel preaching,
the hearing of gospel preaching, confession of faith, and then
water baptism. Since infants are incapable of the requisite faith,
their baptism is premature and inappropriate. The membership
Systematic Theology, 494-501.
8For part of this list I have adapted the synopsis of James Leo Garrett,
Systematic Theology: Biblical, Historical, and Evangelical, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1990, 1995), II:526-528.
9See Grenz, Theology for the Community of God, 529; Lewis and Demarest,
Integrative Theology, III:288; Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed., 1105-1106; also
Grudem, Systematic Theology, 978-79.
10See Garrett, Systematic Theology, II:526; Grenz, Theology for the Community of
God, 528; Lewis and Demarest, Integrative Theology, III:289; Erickson, Christian
Theology, 2nd ed., 1111-1112; Grudem, Systematic Theology, 978.
11See Garrett, Systematic Theology, II:527; Lewis and Demarest, Integrative
Theology, III:288; Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed., 1112; Grudem, Systematic
Theology, 976-77.