Who Should Be Baptised?

Question 9003.

The question of who should be baptised has divided sincere Christians for centuries, and it is not settled by asserting a tradition loudly. It is settled, if it can be settled at all, by looking at what the New Testament actually does and why it says baptism means what it means.

My answer is that believers should be baptised, and only believers. That is a Baptist answer, and I hold it because of the text rather than because of the label on the building.

The pattern in Acts is unbroken

Every baptism recorded in the New Testament follows a profession of faith. There is no exception anywhere. At Pentecost, those who received Peter’s word were baptised, and Luke gives the order deliberately. In Samaria, when they believed Philip’s preaching, they were baptised, both men and women.

The Ethiopian official reads Isaiah, hears the gospel explained, and asks what prevents him from being baptised. Lydia is described as one whose heart the Lord opened to pay attention, and then she is baptised. Cornelius and his household hear the word, receive the Spirit, and are baptised afterwards. Saul of Tarsus meets Jesus on the road, and Ananias tells him to rise and be baptised.

That is a great deal of evidence pointing one way. If some other category of person should be baptised, the New Testament has managed to describe dozens of baptisms without once producing an example.

The command itself puts faith first

The Great Commission has an order built into it. Make disciples, baptising them and teaching them to observe all that Jesus commanded. The participle follows the making of disciples rather than preceding it. Matthew 28:19-20 is not a formula for initiating the uncommitted.

Mark’s summary puts it even more bluntly. Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved. Belief comes first in the sentence and first in the sequence, and the second clause is not the thing that saves.

Peter, asked what his hearers should do, tells them to repent and be baptised. Repentance is something a person does knowingly, and it is not something anyone can do on another’s behalf.

What baptism means requires a believer

Baptism is a picture, and the picture only makes sense of someone who has been united to Jesus. Paul says we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that as he was raised, we too might walk in newness of life. Romans 6 assumes that the person going into the water has died with Jesus and been raised with him.

Peter describes it as an appeal to God for a good conscience, which is the act of somebody with a conscience troubled about sin and now cleansed. That is not the situation of an infant, and I say that without any wish to be unkind about a practice many sincere people follow.

The ordinance is also a public declaration. It is how a new believer says, in front of witnesses, that they belong to Jesus. A declaration made by someone who cannot yet declare anything is a different act with a different meaning, whatever it is called.

So who should be baptised?

Anyone who has repented of sin and trusted Jesus should be baptised, and should be baptised soon. In Acts it happens on the same day with striking regularity, which is a rebuke to churches that hold candidates in a queue for months. There is no biblical requirement to complete a course first, though sensible instruction is a kindness.

Age is not the criterion; credible profession is. A child who genuinely understands their sin and trusts Jesus should be baptised, and I would want to talk with them and with their parents carefully rather than either rushing or refusing. Pastors differ on how young is too young, and I would rather err on the side of unhurried conversation than of enthusiasm.

Nobody should be baptised because a parent wishes it, because it is expected, or because a wedding is coming. Where there is no profession of faith, there is nothing for baptism to signify.

What about the household baptisms?

The strongest argument on the other side is the household texts. Lydia and her household, the Philippian jailer and his household, the household of Stephanas. If households were baptised, might infants not have been included?

Two things weigh against it. The text of Acts 16 says the jailer rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God, so the whole household believed. Paul says of the household of Stephanas that they devoted themselves to the service of the saints, which is not usually said of babies.

The argument also has to do a great deal of work from silence. Nobody disputes that households were baptised. The question is whether any member of them was baptised without believing, and the passages themselves say the opposite. Building a practice on what the text does not exclude is a weak foundation. I have taken this further in whether infants should be baptised.

Baptism does not save

I should say this plainly, because it bears on who should be baptised. Water does not regenerate anyone. The thief on the cross went to paradise unbaptised. Paul told the Corinthians that Jesus did not send him to baptise but to preach the gospel, which would be an extraordinary thing to say if baptism were the means of salvation.

That does not make it optional. It is a command, and a believer who declines it is refusing the first thing Jesus asked of them. But the ordinance testifies to a salvation already received rather than conveying one. I have set that out in whether baptism is necessary for salvation and in what baptismal regeneration is.

Holding both together matters pastorally. It means we neither treat baptism as a mere formality nor frighten people into thinking their eternity hangs on a tank of water.

What about those baptised as infants?

This comes up constantly, and the answer will not please everyone. If you were christened as a baby and have since come to faith, I would encourage you to be baptised as a believer, because the earlier event was not what the New Testament describes.

People sometimes hear that as an insult to their parents or their upbringing, and it is not meant as one. A christening is usually done in love and in good faith. What I am saying is that the thing Scripture calls baptism has not yet happened to you, and that obeying now takes nothing away from the sincerity of anybody then.

I have known believers agonise over this for years. If that is you, read Acts through in one sitting and see what you find, and then talk to your pastor rather than to the internet.

Getting on with it

Most of the people who ask me who should be baptised already know the answer and are asking about themselves. If you have trusted Jesus and never been baptised as a believer, there is no good reason to wait, and the reasons people give are usually about embarrassment rather than theology.

It is a public act, and public acts are uncomfortable. That is rather the point. The first Christians were baptised in a culture where it could cost them their family and sometimes their life, and they still did it within hours of believing.

If your church has a service coming up, put your name down. If it does not, ask why not.

Two objections worth answering

The first objection is that requiring faith before baptism makes the ordinance depend on human decision rather than divine grace. I understand the concern and I do not think it lands. Faith is not a work that earns anything; it is the empty hand that receives. Requiring a believer to believe before being baptised no more makes salvation self-generated than requiring a beggar to open his hand makes the meal his own achievement.

The second is historical. Infant baptism appears early, certainly by the third century, and some argue that so widespread a practice must go back to the apostles. Tertullian, writing around that time, argues against it, which tells us both that it existed and that it was contested. More to the point, antiquity is not authority. Practices drift, and Mark 7:8 has Jesus rebuking men for leaving the commandment of God and holding to the tradition of men.

I would rather be corrected by Acts than reassured by the third century. If a clear apostolic pattern says that those who believe should be baptised, the burden of proof lies with anyone proposing a different candidate, and that burden has never been discharged from the text.

So, now what?

So, practically. If you are a believer who has not been baptised, speak to your elders this week. Not when you feel ready, because nobody ever feels ready, and the New Testament does not treat readiness as the qualification. Faith is the qualification.

If you are a parent wondering about your children, resist both extremes. Do not press a child into the water to settle your own anxiety, and do not withhold it from a child who plainly loves Jesus because you have decided on an arbitrary age.

And if you are still unsure about the whole question, read the book of Acts with a pencil and mark every baptism. It is a short exercise and it settles a good deal.

So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

Acts 2:41 (ESV)