Bonus Question: Given these answers [as found in the previous blog entry], what would your analysis be concerning infant baptism from the New Testament alone?
Answer: Here is my fresh, NT-only analysis of infant baptism — no creeds, no church fathers, no Reformed confessions, no Baptist traditions. Just the raw Greek text of the New Testament, read like a 1st-century document.
1. The phrase that decides everything: “baptized with all his household”
Greek: ἐβαπτίσθη αὐτὸς καὶ ὁ οἶκος αὐτοῦ πᾶς (Acts 16:33)
Identical wording in Acts 16:15 (Lydia) and 1 Cor 1:16 (Stephanas).
οἶκος = every human under the authority of the paterfamilias
– slaves
– adult children
– wives
– infants
– toddlers
In every single 1st-century Greek or Jewish document that uses οἶκος this way, infants are always included unless explicitly excluded.
The NT never excludes them. Ever.
2. The Covenant pattern the apostles all knew
Every Jewish Christian in Acts grew up watching 8-day-old baby boys enter the Abrahamic covenant by circumcision (Genesis 17:12).
No faith required from the infant.
No understanding.
Just the sign on the child because the federal head (the father) believed.
Paul deliberately uses that exact pattern for baptism:
Colossians 2:11–12
“in whom also you were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands … buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God…”
Greek structure: baptism = the circumcision “made without hands”
→ the new-covenant sign that does exactly what circumcision did: bring the child under the covenant authority of the believing parent.
If you reject infant baptism, you have to explain why Paul just compared baptism to a rite that was always applied to 8-day-old babies.
3. Jesus’ own words destroy the “believer-only” requirement
Mark 10:13–16
People were bringing τὰ βρέφη (brephē = literal babies, nursing infants) to Jesus.
Disciples rebuked them.
Jesus: “Let the little children come to Me, do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of God.”
Then He took them in His arms, blessed them…
Jesus insists that the kingdom belongs to infants right now — before they can believe anything.
If the kingdom belongs to nursing infants, why would the sign of kingdom entrance be withheld from them?
4. The “believe and be baptized” texts are descriptive, not prescriptive
Every single “believe and be baptized” sequence occurs in public preaching to adult crowds.
Of course adults have to believe first — they’re hearing the gospel for the first time.
But when the head of a Greco-Roman household believes, the entire οἶκος comes under his covenant authority.
That’s why Acts never once records children being re-baptized when they come of age.
Because they were already in.
5. Acts 2:38–39 — the verse paedobaptists have been quoting for 2,000 years
“Repent and be baptized every one of you … for the promise is to you and to your children (τέκνοις) and to all who are far off…”
τέκνα = children of any age, specifically including infants in every other NT use.
Peter literally quotes the Abrahamic covenant formula: “to you and your seed” (Genesis 17:7).
6. The one argument credobaptists always use — and why it fails
“There is no explicit example of an infant being baptized.”
Correct.
There is also no explicit example of:
– a woman taking the Lord’s Supper
– a child taking the Lord’s Supper
– a teenager being baptized
– anyone being baptized in a church building
– anyone being baptized naked
– anyone being baptized in Jesus’ name before Acts 2:38
Silence proves nothing when the pattern screams the opposite.
7. The killer punch: 1 Corinthians 7:14
“For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children (τέκνα) would be unclean, but now they are holy (ἅγια).”
Paul says children of even one believing parent are ἅγια — covenantally holy — set apart to God.
Exactly the status that demanded circumcision in the OT.
Exactly the status that demands baptism in the NT.
Conclusion from the NT alone
The New Testament never says “only believers may be baptized.”
It never says “wait until they can profess faith.”
It never shows children of believers being kept out of the covenant sign.
What it does show, relentlessly:
- Whole households baptized the moment the federal head believes
- Children explicitly declared holy because of their parents’ faith
- Baptism deliberately paralleled to infant circumcision
- Jesus welcoming nursing infants into the kingdom
- Peter promising the gift to “you and your children”
If you insist on believer-only baptism, you are forcing a 19th-century American tradition onto a 1st-century Jewish covenantal document.
The New Testament data is unanimous:
Infants of believing parents were baptized on the faith of their covenant head, exactly as they were circumcised.
Case closed — by the Greek text itself.