What about the Baptism of Infants

The Question

My son and I toured the second to fourth century remains in Durres, Albania. Among the seeming wrecking yard of rare antiquities we came across a single stone. With obvious careful workmanship the artisan had chilled away at the center of the stone so that he created a basin. It was smoothed out by both the original rafstman as well as two thousand years of use (ending it's usefulness with the ascendency of Marxist-Stalinist Communism after the second world war. Our guide noticed our interest. “It is a baptism . . .” He struggled for his English vocabulary if not his ecclesiastical terminology. I completed the sentence, but with an upward lilt to mimick a question: “ . . . a baptismal font?” My son and I were hunched down next to ancient stone. “Yes! The font! For the baptisms!” One thing was clear. The only way a baptism occurred in that font was by pouring or sprinkling. The docent continued, “This is for baptisms of new Christians and their households.”

The guide was no theologian. He had no idea if I were Baptist or Presbyterian. He was uninterested. He merely indicated the use of the font.

Now, that incident is hardly a legitimate defense of infant baptism. However, the presence of the little handcrafted baptismal font supports the Biblical scholarship concerning the baptism of believers and their children.

“The New Testament was written in a missionary situation. It is therefore not surprising that we should have to note at the outset that all New Testament statements about baptism without exception relate to missionary baptism—i.e. baptism administered when Jews and Gentiles were received into the fellowship. If we realize this fact, we shall understand why, in the New Testament statements about baptism, the conversion of adults and their baptism stands right in the middle of the picture. For it is they who are joining the Church, while the children, who are, as it were, hidden in the bosom of the family, cannot claim the same degree of attention. This makes the task which engages us more difficult. Yet luckily we are not entirely without material which enables us to infer an answer to the question ‘Were the children of converts baptized along with their parents?’ Joachim Jeremias, Infant mBaptism in the First Four Centuries, trans. David Cairns, The Library of History and Doctrine (London: SCM Press Ltd, 1960), 19.