Household Baptism

While we LOVE our Baptist brothers and sisters, as Presbyterians, we do disagree with them over the issue of who baptism is to be administered to.

Our Baptist brothers and sisters believe that only professing believers are to be baptized, credobaptism. Yet, as Presbyterians, we believe that professing believers and their children are to be baptized, traditionally referred to as paedobaptism.

However, while I’m not one to dismiss traditional theological language, referring to our position as oiko or household baptism rather than paedo or infant baptism can be helpful. This is so because, as I hope to show briefly in this post, one of the most straightforward reasons we baptize the infants of believers is that we believe in baptizing the entire households of believers.

Moreover, one of the most straightforward reasons we believe in baptizing the entire households of believers is that we believe in what we'll call, in this post, the household pattern. 

So then, what exactly is the household pattern?

Most simply, it refers to the basic pattern of God’s covenantal dealings with His people: in every administration of the covenant of grace, God establishes His covenant with believers and their children after them. 

In the first administration of the covenant of grace with Adam (Gen. 3:15), we see God establish His covenant with two professing believers (Gen. 3:20), Adam and Eve, and then immediately begin to work out and apply His covenant promises through their natural descendants after them (Gen. 4:1-5 with Heb. 11:4).

Then, as the Genesis 5 genealogy shows, this pattern continued to be worked out and applied through the subsequent generations of Adam and Eve’s natural descendants down through Noah.

Afterwards, in Genesis 6:18, as God establishes the second administration of His covenant of grace with Noah, we see the pattern continue. He says to Noah, “I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall go into the ark — you and your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you.” Then, after the flood in Genesis 9:8-9, we read “Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, ‘And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you.’”

Next, as the Genesis 11 genealogy shows, the pattern continued to be worked out and applied through the subsequent generations of Noah’s natural descendants down through Abraham.

Thereafter, in the third administration of the covenant of grace with Abraham, we receive the most detailed exposition and application of the household pattern. In Genesis 17:7 and following, God says to Abraham, as He did to Noah, “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.”

Further, in Genesis 17, God establishes a sign and seal of initiation into the covenant community and household of faith, the sign and seal of circumcision. He then commands Abraham to apply this covenant sign to every male child in his household at that time, which he does (Genesis 18:23), and to every male child born into his household later, which he also does (Genesis 21:4).

So, with Abraham, we see a household more clearly defined.

We see that biblically, a household refers to all individuals under the authoritative care of a head of household. This includes the head’s immediate family, such as spouse and children, as well as any others, such as servants or dependents, who come under that head’s authority, both at the present and in the future. 

This understanding of a household is important to remember when we come to the new covenant.

But, for now, as the rest of the book of Genesis shows, the household pattern continued to be worked out and applied through the subsequent generations of Abraham’s natural descendants through Isaac and Jacob, through Jacob’s sons, down to the days of Moses.

Subsequently, in the fourth administration of the covenant of grace with and under Moses, we continue to see the pattern at work as the people of God continued to apply the covenant sign of initiation to the infants of professing believers.  

Then, as the Numbers 26:19-22 and Ruth 4:18-22 genealogies show, the household pattern continued to be worked out and applied through the subsequent generations of the sons of Jacob down through David.

Afterwards, in the fifth administration of the covenant of grace with David, we continue to see the pattern play out as the people of God continued to apply the covenant sign of initiation to the infants of professing believers.

Then, as the Matthew 1 genealogy shows, the pattern continued to be worked out and applied through the subsequent generations of David’s natural descendants down through our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. 

Now, when it comes to the household pattern in the new covenant, we see that the new covenant was both prophesied and propagated according to this pattern. 

In both Ezekiel 37:24-28 and Jeremiah 32:39-40, God prophesied that the coming new covenant would consist of promises to, and would be for the good of, both believers and their children, and their children’s children. 

Thereafter, with the coming of our Lord and His establishment of the new covenant in His blood, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, we see the new covenant propagated according to the household pattern. 

On the day of Pentecost, against the backdrop of God’s household dealings with His people in the old covenant administrations of the covenant of grace, the apostle Peter declared to the people of God in Acts 2:38-39, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

Then, after Peter's sermon, we see two mass baptisms in Acts 2:41 and Acts 8:12. Now, these baptisms may have included the children of believers, even though they are not mentioned. For instance, in the feeding of the 5000, many more women and children were fed even though they were not counted in the 5000 (Matt. 14:21). However, these two mass baptisms really are too general to be used by either side in the debate.

On the other hand, when we look at the particular instances of baptism after Peter's sermon, we see that the majority are household baptisms.

In Acts 10:47-48, Cornelius and his household are baptized. In Acts 16:15, Lydia and her household are baptized. In Acts 16:33, the Philippian jailer and his household are baptized. In Acts 18:8, Crispus and his household are baptized. In 1 Corinthians 1:16, Paul recounts baptizing Stephanus and his household. 

Then, in addition to these household baptisms, we have the baptisms of Simon the Sorcerer (Acts 8:13), the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:38), and the apostle Paul (Acts 9:18). 

However, the Ethiopian eunuch clearly did not have a household to be baptized with him, nor did the apostle Paul, since according to 1 Corinthians 7:8, he was unmarried.

Further, when it comes to Simon, not only is there no mention of his household in Acts 8, but the early church witnesses to Simon's life after the narrative of Acts confirm that he had no household at the time of his baptism. These witnesses not only make no mention of Simon's family, but further record that at some point after Acts 8, he had taken a prostitute named Helen as his traveling companion.

This all means that outside of and after the two mass baptisms, of the eight particular instances of baptism recorded, five are household baptisms, and the other three are of men who lacked households at the time of their baptisms.

What this indicates is that whenever there actually was a household to be baptized, the entire household of the professing believer was baptized.

To be clear, though, the force of this argument from the household pattern is not based on the assumption that infants were in fact present in those New Testament households mentioned above. The presence or absence of infants in those households at the time of their baptisms is not actually relevant.

Rather, the force of the argument is in simply seeing that the new covenant continued to be propagated according to the household pattern, just as each administration of the covenant of grace before it.

Therefore, according to the household pattern, as seen most clearly with Abraham and his household, even if there were no infants in any of those households at the time of their baptism, we can nevertheless be sure that any subsequent infants would have received the covenant sign of initiation, baptism, after they were born into the household. 

How can we be sure of this?

We can be sure of this because of the household pattern established by God, which runs throughout every administration of the covenant of grace.

We can be sure of this because God establishes His covenant with us and our children after us.

So, once again, why do Presbyterians practice paedo or infant baptism?

We do so because we believe in oiko or household baptism.